Tag Archives: Conversations with Nick Cave

Yes, We Had More Snow!!

December 31, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis 3 Comments

It was nothing as dramatic as the snow we got on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, nevertheless, I awoke at 3am to go to the bathroom, and what to my wondering eyes should appear outside the windows? Snow!! Yay!!

When I went to bed last night, it was raining. Not that I don’t like rain, however, loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that this past summer, torrential rains caused a serious leak in my bathroom ceiling downstairs. And since I have gotten more and more broke as this fake p* nd * m*c continues, I can’t afford to get that section of the roof re-sealed and stop the leak in my bathroom ceiling.

And last evening, because of the relentless rain, the ceiling down in that bathroom sprang a new and much more impressive leak. So to awaken to snow by 3am was also a signal that the leak in the downstairs bathroom ceiling would at least cease until the snow melts… so that was a relief.

(And what’s interesting to note is that I live in a house that’s 120 years old, and yet the newest part of the roof — from 1997 — is what’s leaking.)

I actually have no idea what to do about this, gang. I can’t afford to hire someone to come out and fix the roof right now. I have given some thought to perhaps trying to find a younger, real handyman-type of guy somewhere to get married to ASAP and get that roof fixed by him. But, actually, I’m not a big “marriage” type of gal (she says, after 2 divorces), and if I were going to get involved with another man, I would kind of like to actually be in love…

And I don’t want to resort to putting in a claim with my homeowner’s insurance, because then they raise your monthly rates… But how long can I live with this problem that is obviously getting worse? Plus, I love that bathroom. I have to make some sort of a decision. Like, soon.

Meanwhile, I will simply enjoy the snow combined with the fact that everyone still has their Christmas lights up!

All right.

Man, just when you thought you couldn’t hate O b * m * more than you already did… more awfulness comes to light. The first two videos below will explain that. And the video from Keyboard Operator (the first one below) goes into something kind of horrific that I had not heard before. It’s at the 3-minute mark in the video.

It not only involves more horrific shit about O b * m *, but it includes another tw ** t from L*n W**d regarding U S S* pr * m* Co * rt J* dg e R * b er ts and more reasons why he is apparently being blackmailed. It’s really sickening.

Okay, let’s just back track a bit.

First of all, just generally, if no one has ever alerted you to this before: Don’t have sex with underage teens anymore. It used to be perfectly okay back in the 1970s (unless you were famous and someone really just wanted to drain you dry of your financial resources). But now it’s totally the murkiest area imaginable and it leaves you open to all sorts of blackmail and jail time.

I’m not talking about what I would call true “pedophilia,” which in my opinion, involves actual children. I’m talking here about sexually-active teenagers. And teenagers, in the entirety of my 60 years on planet Earth, have always loved sex and have usually had quite a lot of it. Hence, so many really young gals with babies. (My own parents were 13 and 15 when I was born.) But getting anywhere near sexually-active teenagers now, if you’re older than they are, is so illegal it would make your head spin.

So, stay away from underage teens. Also, don’t get involved in murders or in helping to cover-up murders.

These two things are just my general advice to you. Your life is going to go much more smoothly if you steer clear of these two things.

However, that said, if your life goes completely awry and you do manage to get involved in those two things — even if you were set up — well, here’s an idea: Don’t go into politics. And best yet, don’t become a Judge. You’re just gonna sleep better if you avoid all that, okay?

Oh, and plus, if you steer clear of those two things, it’s not gonna get in the way of your doing your actual job…

I’m just making general observations here, and giving you what I consider to be sound advice. But that’s just me.

Oh, and this is only partially related — the whole E p st **n Island thing, and how he “committed suicide” in his jail cell in NYC while the security cameras where mysteriously not working… oh, and his cell mate was mysteriously moved to a new cell a couple days before…

Okay, well, that guy, the cell mate, was released from jail as part of the fake C* VID p* nd * m*c and the plan to keep jails from being overcrowded — well, he was released from jail. The cell mate who was mysteriously moved out of E p st ** n’s cell right before he “committed suicide”. He was released from jail. And guess what?

Yes, he recently died from C* VID while alone in his apartment…

All righty.

Let’s just avoid jails when and if at all possible, okay, people???

(That said, though, I get the distinct impression that the federal prisons are gonna start getting super-duper crowded over the next 4 years… don’t you?)

Okay. Have a wonderful New Year’s Eve, wherever you are in the world. 2021 promises to be explosive. And I hope in all the best ways. Take care of yourselves. And thanks for visiting!! (The song below is dedicated to the man I love. He knows who he is.)

Okay. I love all of you! See ya.

“Kathy’s Song”

I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls.
And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England, where my heart lies.

My mind’s distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you’re asleep
And kiss you when you start your day.

And as a song I was writing is left undone
I don’t know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can’t believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme.

And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you.

And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I

***********
Below are ten minutes that should blow your mind:

Devastating (below): Senate Committee report: Ob * m* Administration was funding Al Qu a e da…

Below: “Trump has now trapped, Congress. Congress has been put into the spotlight with the stimulus bill and the NDAA. Now people are watching to see how Congress handles this. This is something (Congress) does not want, they are exposed. The EU begins to talk about the great reset [in partnership with Ch * n a — Ed] , this is already failing.”

Below: “… The entire election scam is falling apart and those who [knowingly] participated are feeling the heat. Tick-tock, time is running out.”

Blame S * r * s for this and get the fuck out of New York. $8 millions worth of budget cuts to de-fund the police there. Crime is truly off the charts:

Yesterday, this testimony changed everything about G A, and it was live online and on TV:

The difference between the Constitution and laws:

Random college students in Southern California who do not know the Pledge of Allegiance… unbelievable. (This sad situation was all part of a planned attack by previous Administrations in D C on our public schools, nationwide. It’s called “Common Core,” and its plan was to dumb down America, to distance children from the history of America and any love for America, and actually make them dismissive of America and more easily accepting of Leftist ideologies. It worked, by the way.

It has been demonstrably proven that kids who attend private schools, charter schools, or parochial schools are much better educated than kids sent to public schools, regardless of race, religion, income, or gender.

(If you aren’t American, the Pledge of Allegiance is something that used to be taught to us in public schools at age six: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands; one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.) (Justice for all, folks. They aren’t taught that anymore.)

A Cold Rainy November Day in Crazeysburg!!

November 1, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

Tonight, it’s going to get really cold — colder than it’s been so far — so I’m guessing the petunias are not going to survive much longer. Although it’s been truly amazing how well they’ve been doing so far.

The morning glories died out with that first frost we had several weeks ago. So the petunias are really just so hardy.

I spoke with Valerie for a while yesterday and she said that her petunias are still blooming, too. (In Brooklyn — 500 miles away from here.) So maybe it’s just the way petunias are.

Plus, as she and I were talking, all the many little trick-or-treaters were out and about, heading to the town hall to get their candy (yes — the very same town hall that Nick Cave steadfastly refused to hold a Conversation in last year, even though at least fourteen people would have showed up!!) (And because I not only staked my reputation on how great the show would be, and all 14 Crazeysburgers were so severely disappointed by his no-show that they will not speak to me anymore, plus I had even ordered a really nice Fazoli grand piano from Italy to have in the town hall for him and I had to put $238,000 on my credit card — anyway, because of that, I am forced to post this photo of Nick Cave here on the blog):

Of course, I am just kidding about all of that.

And not only am I just kidding, but I also digress.

So.

While Valerie and I were talking on the phone, and while all the many, many trick-or-treaters and their moms and dads were heading to the town hall to get their candy, they were forced to wade through an unbelievably enormous amount of dead leaves that have accumulated on my front side walk, and I felt really guilty because of my “No-Raking” policy (which is also an “I’m too lazy to rake” policy)…

And so Valerie convinced me that I should get a leaf blower/vacuum/mulcher like she has!

She guarantees they are easy to handle, they are now electric, and often even cordless. And lightweight.

I had no idea about this because in the old days, they were super noisy and ran on gasoline. But Valerie has convinced me that all that has changed and so I will stop into the Home Depot next week and see what’s in stock. They are super affordable now, too. (For instance, I can buy 3,553 leaf blowers for what I spent on that Fazoli grand piano…)

Oh my god. Okay! The coolest thing happened to me yesterday.

It was a gorgeous day here. A little cool but just so sunny and just so perfect for the last Saturday in October. And I decided to go to Subway (a fast food sandwich place — we have a Subway and a Dairy Queen here in Crazeysburg) to buy my lunch/dinner. Because they have vegetarian options there that are actually good and sometimes I just get so tired of eating the same darn healthy organic non-GMO things over and over and over and over…

And so I walked past the house where the cute teenage blond boy who has the motorcycle lives. And two men were in the driveway working under the hood of a white pickup truck. And one of the men was an older, nearly exact-replica of the teenage boy… I don’t know if it’s his dad or maybe an uncle or what, because the blonde-haired mom came out the front door and called for the second man to come into the house for something. So maybe the woman and the second man are married — I don’t know.

But on my way back from Subway’s, only the blonde man was in the driveway working on the truck, and as I walked passed, he made the horn give a quick little honk.

I was secretly and quietly thrilled! (I am ridiculously shy around men when I find them attractive.) But it was clear that I existed and that he had hormones.

Oh man, gang. It was too cool. However, I will not let my imagination wander because one thing about this area is that everybody is married.

Okay.

I will tell you a secret about how I achieve my stellar success as a writer: I usually do not write when Mercury is retrograde. I find it to be a very difficult mental atmosphere to write anything new in, or to even edit anything in because I never like what I come up with and I constantly change my mind.

Mercury goes direct again tomorrow and I am already feeling the creative change inside me, so I might get back to work on “Novitiate” today!! (The new erotic short story that will round-out Volume 4 of The Muse Revisited, which I will be sending over to Black Lotus Books when it is complete.) So I feel really good about that.

It just feels like a nice November Sunday, all the way around. Plus, today is the day we turned our clocks back an hour, so we get a nice long lazy rainy day here today.

I did sort of celebrate Halloween last evening, by watching the blaxploitation movie from 1972, Blacula, while doing yoga by candlelight.

I love Blacula and own it on video, but it’s actually free to stream in HD on Amazon Prime so I did that instead. The movie is just so very 1972, gang. It’s very sexy and fun and even a little creepy/scary. So that was my Halloween.

Other than that, I was really saddened to hear that the UK is also going back into lockdown this coming week. Just unbelievable, this fucking virus.

Here in Crazeysburg, we are still holding at zero active cases. Schools and churches and stores have been open for several months now, although masks and social distancing are practiced. However, we are in the great wide open here and very few people actually live here (1300 people).

Okay. I’m going to get going here. I hope you have a nice Sunday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning – yes, I’m back to The Monkees. Their huge hit: “Daydream Believer” from The Birds, The Bees, and The Monkees (1968). It made for a nice, cheery little breakfast at 5:11am. So listen and enjoy!! I love you guys. See ya.

Hello Life, Goodbye Yesterday!

September 23, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Man, yesterday really sort of sucked — it started out bad and, try as I did to re-route the whole day, it only got worse. (See yesterday’s post — or simply move on, as I am trying to do.)

I did end up playing some more Tom Petty music off and on throughout the day, and that may or may not have been the best idea. I don’t know. Is it better to allow yourself to feel something, even if it makes you unbelievably sad, or better to try to ignore feeling something and maybe just go crazy in some other way?

It isn’t so much how sad I was feeling about Tom Petty yesterday, but the man who died 2 Septembers ago — we used to listen almost exclusively to Tom Petty, so it honestly felt like both of those dead men were alive & well in my kitchen yesterday (in spirit), and it very keenly made me just want to cross over. Which, to me, is different from feeling suicidal; it’s just wanting to get over to the other side right now instead of waiting until some other time. The loneliness feels unbearable.

But then I see 7 adorable feral cats staring at me, and crossing over while they’re still alive & well means they will be euthanized by the County Humane Society, since they’re un-adoptable. And then it’s not just me crossing over, it’s me and 7 cats crossing over and it starts to feel so complicated that I say, “Oh for Christ’s sake, I’ll just stay.”

So I got very little work done on 1954 Powder Blue Pickup (the new erotic novella that is almost done). So I am really, really hoping that I can stay in this better frame of mind here today and get some good work done on it, and maybe even finish it by the weekend. I hope!

But by 5 pm yesterday, I finally gave up on the idea that I would get any more work done on the novella, and I closed up shop and went down to the kitchen and streamed the new documentary about Bill Wyman’s life and his amazing archives — The Quiet One.

I am so glad I did that! What a great movie. If you love the Rolling Stones, especially the original band, you have to stream it.

I learned so much about Bill Wyman’s life that I never knew before, plus all of his archival footage and photos of the Stones, oh my god — it connected me viscerally to the girl I was when I was 11- 12 years old, and so in love with the Rolling Stones.

And oddly enough, even though Brian Jones had already been dead for about 2 years by the time I was 11, I always connected emotionally to that version of the group and was not a big Mick Taylor fan. (However, I always loved Ronnie Wood, so when he joined the Stones after Mick Taylor left, I was just in schoolgirl heaven.)

50 Years Ago: Brian Jones is Fired by the Rolling Stones — Above, Brian Jones in 1965, then only 4 years later, before he died at age 27.

Since Bill was never one of the Stones who got into drugs, he had a whole different take on what was happening with Brian, Mick, and Keith in those days (late 60s, early 70s) — it was just really interesting. It seems like Bill Wyman was/is, for the most part, a very happy person and you would never really have guessed this, since he always had that moniker of the “Stone Face” who never smiled.

And it also seems like he has had a really happy and rewarding life since he decided to leave the Stones, back in 1993 (after 30 years of being the bass player). He is 83 now.

Anyway, that movie really, really helped me forget about myself and move past my sad mood yesterday and put me into a whole different place by the end of the evening. I just enjoyed the film so much.

Okay. Onward with today!

Oh! Except that yesterday, Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File, replying to his 30,000th letter! (And no — I didn’t write 29,963 of them!!) (I only wrote, like, 110…) He wrote something about fear and life and experience and things like that. And in his usual eloquent way. You can read it here.

(And today marks one year since I saw Nick Cave in Conversation at Town Hall in NYC!) (And here’s something you might not know! If you google “nick cave town hall nyc 2019” this photo comes up and it’s mine!!)

D7AFCE42-1C90-4D1A-81E2-8FDFBD8C5364 | Marilyn's Room — Waiting to see Nick Cave at Town Hall

All right. Yoga awaits. Then, hopefully, some truly splendid hours of working on 1954 Powder Blue Pickup.

I hope you have a happy Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. I’m leaving you with the song I always sing whenever I am once again ready to embrace the idea of living — The Association’s hit song “Goodbye Columbus” (1969). This was the theme song from the hit movie, Goodbye Columbus, which was adapted from the Philip Roth bestselling-novel of the same name. This was the film that gave us a wonderful look at the beautiful model-turned actress Ali MacGraw. (Whom I got to meet once when I worked at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, and she was really beautiful, AND she had really, really big feet!!!) (Have you noticed that so many fashion models have really big feet?)

The only thing I really like about the book and the movie is, in fact, that theme song. Because it’s all about leaving Columbus, Ohio, and finally saying hello to life. (Columbus, Ohio, is a place I absolutely despise. Every horrible thing that ever happened to me, happened to me in that town. And I mean everything — starting from my birth there, in a county home for unwed mothers, and then my grandfather putting me up for adoption to a family in Cleveland, behind my mother’s back…) (But honestly, I absolutely hate Columbus. Various rapes, suicide attempts, mental hospital, boy I loved getting killed/buried there…)

Anyway!!! I digress. Play the happy song, get the heck out of Columbus, and say hello to a brand new life. Have a great day, gang. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

“Goodbye, Columbus”

Got to say hello
It’s a lucky day
Kiss the moon goodbye
And be on our way

It’s a lucky day
Cause I found you
Gonna build a
New world around you
Touch the sun and run
It’s a lucky day

Hello life
Goodbye Columbus
I’ve got a feeling that
You’re gonna hear from us
You’re gonna know
That we’ve taken
The world by surprise
Got that look in our eyes
It’s a lucky day

Just for changing
Leaving the old world behind
Lucky day for walking a new road
Just to clear your mind

It’s a day for starting a new way
Telling the old one goodbye
Lucky day for getting above it
Spread your wings and fly

Hello life
Goodbye Columbus
I’ve got a feeling that
You’re gonna hear from us
You’re gonna know
That we’ve taken
The world by surprise
Got that look in our eyes
It’s a lucky day

Yeah, yeah…
Goodbye, goodbye Columbus
Goodbye, goodbye Columbus…

All Righty!! Already Been to Town & Back!!

September 21, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

For some reason, after I did yoga first thing this morning, I was full of energy and decided to just head into town and get the groceries ASAP.

I think I got there the moment the market opened — or close to it. They were still trying to stock the shelves.

But it feels nice to already have it behind me for the week and I still have the whole day ahead of me to write!!

Plus, it is just a beautiful morning, even though it was chilly out there. But what a nice drive. So sunny and it was kind of amazing to note that all the corn is long gone, and the fields are turning brown and some of the trees are even changing colors already.

When the heck did all that happen?

What an incredibly weird summer 2020 was. Although, in most ways, I really, really enjoyed it. Everything was just so low key out here in the Hinterlands, and we hardly had any signs of the virus, and god knows we had zero riots & no looting & no shootings, and we still got to have fireworks on the 4th of July. And I hardly ever left Crazeysburg the entire summer. So it was actually kind of nice — like living in Yesteryear…

But as always, I am sad to see summer officially go. And on this day last year, I was seeing Nick Cave in Conversation at Lincoln Center in NYC and there was a god-awful heat wave going on the whole week I was there. Nothing at all like this year — where it was down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit during the night.

Anyway. Here was September 21st, last year:

I had the time of my life…

Okay. My progress yesterday on the new erotic novella, 1954 Powder Blue Pick Up, was sort of very strange. I am still getting really stuck on the timing of the various events that bring the novella to a close. I mean, I still have a good 10 pages to go, but it is heading to a close. Which is very weird, since the first 30 pages came out in a sort of nonstop flood. And now, for two days running, I have not been able to get a clear reading on how it all unfolds toward the end, even though I know exactly what’s supposed to happen.

So I’m hoping today will be more productive. It’s one of the reasons I headed out to the store early — to just be able to sit here and focus for as long as it takes today.

Well, yesterday, I broke down and changed the bedding in the guest room over to the fall stuff. Put the flannel sheets on and the extra blankets. And since I didn’t have a single guest the whole spring/summer, it was kind of sad to take off all the summer bedding and wash it and put it away for next year… (I keep the entire bed under mounds of fleece and cotton throws all year, in order to keep the sheets and blankets safe from all the cat hair, but I still like to wash everything before I put it away each season. I don’t know, there’s something about switching things out for the seasons — makes me really happy when everything is already clean and ready to go, even though almost no one sleeps in that bed now except for my birth mom, maybe once or twice a year.)

Anyway, I’m reluctantly admitting that fall is indeed coming.

Okay, well I guess I will get started here! Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a great Monday planned, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with my “traveling to town & back” music from this morning — from Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves (1974), “On A Night Like This.” (You have to actually watch it on Vimeo. They won’t let me embed it.) However! Enjoy!!!! (And come visit!! The sheets are clean!!) All righty. I love you guys. See ya.

https://vimeo.com/381447648

“On A Night Like This”

On a night like this
I am so glad you came around
Hold on to me so tight
And heat up some coffee grounds
We got much to talk about
And much to reminisce
It sure is right
On a night like this.

On a night like this
So glad you’ve come to stay
Hold on to me, pretty miss
Say you’ll never go away to stray
Run your fingers down my spine
Bring me a touch of bliss
It sure feels right
On a night like this.

On a night like this
I can’t get any sleep
The air is so cold outside
And the snow’s so deep
Build a fire, throw on logs
And listen to it hiss
And let it burn, burn, burn, burn
On a night like this.

Put your body next to mine
And keep me company
There is plenty a room for all
So please don’t elbow me.

Let the four winds blow
Around this old cabin door
If I’m not too far off
I think we did this once before
There’s more frost on the window glass
With each new tender kiss
But it sure feels right
On a night like this.

Two Super Frosty Mornings In A Row!

September 20, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis 3 Comments

Yes, by midday yesterday, I actually broke down and turned on the furnace. It was really unbelievably frosty in this house yesterday!

By tomorrow, the temperatures will be getting back to the normal September weather, but last night (and tonight again) it actually got down into the 30s Fahrenheit… my poor cats, right? So I had to turn on the heat.

The main reason I hate having that furnace on, and always put it off until the final moment, is that it messes with my sinuses like you wouldn’t believe. (By January, I usually start getting nose-bleeds that last until I can finally turn that furnace off.) ( I really really just love fresh air.) (Even this morning, I woke up at 5am, wondering why I couldn’t breathe and then remembered that the furnace was on…)

And now I am facing the awesome task of once again cutting back the hydrangea bush for the season. The blossoms have all turned to that greenish-pink color now, and are all bent over. I am going to try to get to it during the week. It is such a massive plant now that I can’t even imagine where I will start! I guess that I’ll just “start.”

(How it looked when it was finally in full bloom in August; it got to be 8 ft tall this year)

That first summer when I bought the house, it didn’t bloom anywhere near this astoundingly. I don’t think anyone had really taken care of it in years. But I began cutting it back that first fall, and these past two summers it has just exploded with growth and blossoms. I really just love this plant.

So, I got great work done on the novella yesterday (1954 Powder Blue Pickup). I sat and stared at it for several hours yesterday morning, before it came to me to move that part where his girl does that unexpected thing to after the gangbang section. Because, honestly, I could not figure out for the life of me how to move anything forward. So it finally occurred to me to just rearrange stuff.

And then 9 hours later… I was done writing for the day. So I was happy.

All right, well, I don’t want to become a stalker or anything, but that blond teenage boy down the street is just too awesome. Now that I know what house he lives in, I can’t help but be looking right at it every time I get up from my desk and look out that window. And yesterday, in that unbelievably gorgeous (although cool) weather, he was out there washing and waxing that electric blue Honda Civic that his mom drive’s from the Honda dealership. (See how, without even trying, I’m starting to learn all this weird stuff about their lives?? And I don’t even have a clue who they are! I wonder how much I would learn if I actually was stalking him…)

Well, he did an amazing job with that car. And it made me wish so much that I had a kid who would wash & wax my Honda civic!! Because mine is Molten-Lava, which is a color and intensely sparkly finish that makes “a bold sparkly statement” and draws attention and I never wash it. I have had it a year now and it has only been washed twice in that year.

Mostly this is because there has been a pandemic going on for 6 months of that year, but also because that first summer I was here in the house, the garden spigot was making me insane and always turning itself on by accident, without me knowing it had done that until after it had run up a fortune on my water bill. So I had the spigot removed, and had a turn-off valve installed just inside the basement where the spigot connects to the main water line, but then never had a new spigot put back in so, for now, I have no garden hose, which makes it a colossal pain to try to wash your own car at home.

I just love being a single homeowner. I absolutely never get around to half the stuff that needs doing around here. Mostly because it would involve me actually getting up from my desk.

And speaking of getting up from my desk…

I guess I will get started here today, do yoga and then get back to work on the novella.

It is just so beautiful outside right now, and it’s supposed to get up to 70 today, so here’s hoping I will breathe just fine for most of the day!! I hope you are enjoying your Sunday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning — from an album I was listening to nonstop for most of my 9-hour drive out to Rhinebeck, NY, this time last year to see Nick Cave in Conversation (oh, and also to have that incredibly great meeting with my director in NYC regarding my play Tell My Bones that is indeed moving forward in a way that makes me so unbelievably happy.) (What a difference a year makes, right? Good and not so good, but mostly good.)

Anyway, a very, very favorite song of mine, as well as a total classic from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the “live” version of “Southern Accents”. (In the incredibly hard-to-put-down book, Conversations with Tom Petty (2005), he talked about getting up in the middle of the night, going out to the piano in the other room and suddenly writing this song from start to finish, just like that. It all came out at once — music & lyrics. And then he went right back to bed. And it was the song that finally helped him process his mom’s death. They were from Northern Florida, which, especially back then, was like coming from Southern Georgia — very southern. Well, I knew none of that stuff until I read that book; until then, I’d just sort of loved the song. Now, I really, really love the song. And of course, it practically became his anthem. Or one of them.)

Anyway!! Enjoy. Have a great day and thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

“Southern Accents”

There’s a southern accent, where I come from
The young ‘uns call it country, the Yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talking, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from

Now that drunk tank in Atlanta is just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando, if them orange groves don’t freeze
Got my own way of working, but everything is run
With a southern accent, where I come from

For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there, with me

There’s a dream I keep having, where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window, and says a prayer for me
Got my own way of praying, but every one’s begun
With a southern accent, where I come from

Got my own way of living, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from

As Much As I’d Love To Tarry Here…

September 16, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

And talk about the fall weather arriving, and all the strange dreams I had last night, and how happy I am with how the erotic novella (!!) 1954 Powder Blue Pickup is going, etc…

The reality is that, for some reason, I was wide awake between 2am to 3am today, and I was determined not to get out of bed and start my day at that ridiculous hour because the ridiculous hour that I normally start my day at is ridiculous enough, thank you, so I forced myself to go back to sleep, and then….

Four hours later!! Fuck! You know, I never wake-up when the sun is already up. It was almost 7am when I got out of bed today and, for me, that feels like my day is half-over.

So, I am trying to cut corners here and get emails dashed off, get bills paid, forego yoga, blitz through the blog post and get down to work on the writing for today!

I will go on a quick tangent here and mention that it was a sort of shock to me to realize that all those photos posted here from my trip to Rhinebeck are now almost one year old. I cannot fucking believe that. I don’t want to believe that — not only that the year has flown, but that it wound up being such an insane year, plus it means it’s been a year since I saw Nick Cave — twice in one weekend.

It just doesn’t seem possible.

I’ve written a lot in the past year. A lot. So I can’t say it wasn’t a fruitful year. Still. I just find this unbelievably rapid disappearance of time really unnerving.

And that said, before it becomes next September already, I’m gonna close this and get to work here.

I hope you enjoy your wonderful Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with Hank Locklin, singing his Country & Western hit from 1958, “Send Me the Pillow that You Dream On.” If you don’t know his work, he was just an amazing Country & Western songwriter (and singer — but his songs were just fantastic. Singers in other styles of music covered his hits, too) Okay. Enjoy and thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

“Send Me The Pillow You Dream On”

Send me the pillow that you dream on
Don’t you know that I still care for you
Send me the pillow that you dream on
So darling I can dream on it too

Each night while I’m sleeping oh so lonely
I’ll share your love in dreams that once were true
Send me the pillow that you dream on
So darling I can dream on it too

Send me the pillow that you dream on
Maybe time will let our dreams come true
Send me the pillow that you dream on
So darling I can dream on it too

I’ve waited so long for you to write me
But just a memory’s all that’s left of you
So send me the pillow that you dream on
So darling I can dream on it too

Well, Happy June 19th!

June 19, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

There is a segment of the African-American population that doesn’t really want white people to appropriate their holiday– Juneteenth — which is today. So I won’t appropriate it, but it is big news right now so I will at least acknowledge it and, since most of my readers live in foreign lands, let you know about it!

Juneteenth is a holiday in the State of Texas, which was the final Southern State to emancipate black slaves on June 19, 1865, which meant that the entire country became ostensibly a free country — although freed blacks still had a really rough time of it , especially in the Southern States, after slavery was abolished. (That’s putting it mildly.)

However, African-Americans in the whole country now honor the Texas State holiday — called Juneteenth — which is today.

Also, today — “Disclosure” is premiering on Netflix; a new documentary about trans lives in Hollywood. And Sandra Caldwell is interviewed in it, and was also featured in the Los Angeles Times over the weekend, in promotion of the documentary. (For readers who are new to this blog, Sandra is the Rhinebeck-based actor I work with on several theater projects. You can see her in 2 of those photos there from my trip to Rhinebeck, NY, this past September. In happier pre-virus, pre- lockdown days — when Nick Cave was still on his North American In Conversations tour!!) Sandra has been trans since the 1970s, and has been in many dozens of movies and TV shows (and stage shows) throughout that time.

Also, today is the release of Bob Dylan’s new album Rough and Rowdy Ways. This is his first album of all original songs in 8 years — and it includes that amazing new song of his that was dropped a couple months back, “Murder Most Foul.”

So, kind of a big day, with lots happening around here.

I am going to try to get some writing done, although I am battling depression here once again. So we’ll see how that goes. Sometimes I get good work done, even when I’m depressed. Other times — like yesterday — it quickly becomes a lost cause. But we shall see. I am still only halfway done with Letter #8 for Girl in the Night. And I would really, really like to finish that.

My current depression stems from a sudden inability to really discern a difference between being physical and being non-physical. (I won’t go into the myriad “Particle Physics” details of that whole thought process because it will literally make you just as insane as I am.) And now that so much of the US is just kind of reveling in such horribly awful shit every single day, with no end in sight, I keep inching toward that question: What is the point?

But I do have these many rescued feral cats depending on me, and I also know that at this particular juncture in time, Peitor would have a really difficult time coping with stuff if I simply bailed. So I try to stay focused more on him, than on these intensely convoluted thoughts concerning Particle Physics that are in my head. It would be nicest of all if I could just focus on writing today, though.

One bright spot — last evening, I began streaming Professor T on PBS. This is a Belgian import — another murder mystery, however this one takes place in modern day. I think a new season is getting ready to drop, so I’m going to try to catch up. I really, really loved the episode I watched last night!! It’s so well written. Although, at first, the subtitles are a wee bit distracting. Eventually, though, I completely forgot that I was reading them — the show was so good.

Okay! I’m gonna close this. And I’ll leave you with one of the songs from Dylan’s new album — this one is titled “My Own Version of You.” Enjoy!! And thanks for visiting, gang. Make it a great Friday, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys. See ya!

“My Own Version of You”

All through the summers, into January
I’ve been visiting morgues and monasteries
Looking for the necessary body parts
Limbs and livers and brains and hearts
I’ll bring someone to life, is what I wanna do
I wanna create my own version of you

Well, it must be the winter of my discontent
I wish you’d’ve taken me with you wherever you went
They talk all night and they talk all day
Not for a minute do I believe anything they say
I’m gon’ bring someone to life, someone I’ve never seen
You know what I mean, you know exactly what I mean

I’ll take the Scarface Pacino and The Godfather Brando
Mix it up in a tank and get a robot commando
If I do it upright and put the head on straight
I’ll be saved by the creature that I create
I’ll get blood from a cactus, gunpowder from ice
I don’t gamble with cards and I don’t shoot no dice
Can you look at my face with your sightless eyes?
Can you cross your heart and hope to die?
I’ll bring someone to life, someone for real
Someone who feels the way that I feel

I study Sanskrit and Arabic to improve my mind
I wanna do things for the benefit of all mankind
I say to the willow tree, “Don’t weep for me”
I’m saying to hell to all things that I used to be
Well, I get into trouble, then I hit the wall
No place to turn, no place at all
I’ll pick a number between a-one and two
And I ask myself, “What would Julius Caesar do?”
I will bring someone to life in more ways than one
Don’t matter how long it takes, it’ll be done when it’s done

I’m gonna make you play the piano like Leon Russell
Like Liberace, like St. John the Apostle
I’ll play every number that I can play
I’ll see you maybe on Judgment Day
After midnight, if you still wanna meet
I’ll be at the Black Horse Tavern on Armageddon Street
Two doors down, not that far a walk
I’ll hear your footsteps, you won’t have to knock
I’ll bring someone to life, balance the scales
I’m not gonna get involved any insignificant details

You can bring it to St. Peter
You can bring it to Jerome
You can bring it all the way over
Bring it all the way home
Bring it to the corner where the children play
You can bring it to me on a silver tray
I’ll bring someone to life, spare no expense
Do it with decency and common sense

Can you tell me what it means, to be or not to be?
You won’t get away with fooling me
Can you help me walk that moonlight mile?
Can you give me the blessings of your smile?
I’ll bring someone to life, use all of my powers
Do it in the dark, in the wee, small hours

I can see the history of the whole human race
It’s all right there, it’s carved into your face
Should I break it all down? Should I fall on my knees?
Is there light at the end of the tunnel, can you tell me, please?
Stand over there by the cypress tree
Where the Trojan women and children were sold into slavery
Long before the first Crusade
Way back before England or America were made
Step right into the burning hell
Where some of the best-known enemies of mankind dwell
Mr. Freud with his dreams, Mr. Marx with his ax
See the raw hide lash rip the skin from their backs
Got the right spirit, you can feel it, you can hear it
You’ve got what they call the immortal spirit
You can feel it all night, you can feel it in the morn’
It creeps in your body the day you were born
One strike of lightning is all that I need
And a blast of electricity that runs at top speed
Shimmy your ribs, I’ll stick in the knife
Gonna jumpstart my creation to life
I wanna bring someone to life, turn back the years
Do it with laughter and do it with tears

The Better it Gets, Gang, the Better it Gets!

February 1, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Okay, well. Yesterday was amazing. Peitor and I worked for hours (on the phone) but we got nothing new done on the “Lita” script because we wanted to start getting our Mission Statement down on paper for Abstract Absurdity Productions and figuring out how we wanted to approach the layout of the web site, etc. (which is my job to execute in my “spare” time!!).

And then, while in the midst of that, we wrote three new micro-micro-shorts. I’m so serious. It’s, like, insane. How creative we are together. And the stuff is so funny that, once again, I ended up crying.

And it’s not the kind of thing that a viewer would necessarily see as “funny.” More, like — hm. that went someplace I didn’t expect. And even though the micro-micro-shorts are under 60 seconds in length, they are complete stories and are just really complex as far as filmmaking and ideas and sound, which, to Peitor and me, is a large part of what makes it so funny.

But it did, again, become extremely apparent that I’m going to have to spend a lot more time in Los Angeles. And I’m super hoping that my birth mom is going to be okay with practically living here when the time comes.

It is her birthday today, btw. She is 73. And it also would have been my stepmom’s birthday. So I called my dad first thing this morning and he’s not doing so great today. But overall, he’s managing.

And oddly enough, Peitor’s dad died yesterday morning. But that’s sort of really personal to him so I can’t comment on that. I can only say that we were off-the-charts creative yesterday. And just all day and on into the night — when I wasn’t thinking curiously about Nick Cave’s final Conversation in Brussels and wondering how on Earth I would live the rest of my life without knowing where he is, what he’s wearing and what he’s talking about, I was thinking about one specific story Peitor and I had thought up yesterday and it would just make me laugh out loud.

Which leads to the topic of the final Conversation in Brussels last night. Only a couple of photos of Nick Cave were posted to Instagram, but quite a few photos of the enormous sign in the theater lobby stating that phones weren’t allowed during the performance were posted. So, people in Brussels apparently have a strong belief in the truth of signs.

[mini update: as the morning went on, tons of photos and videos got posted, including him singing “15 Feet of Pure White Snow”!!!! Yay!!]

[another update — it looks like someone got engaged on the stage in Brussels last night!?]

I know, I know. I really and truly hate when people take out their phones in any type of performance space. I really do. And it’s really great that some people somewhere still know how to experience their lives without their phones. I’m actually that way myself. I would rather revisit what’s in my mind than what’s on my phone. Still… man, Jeez. Well. Okay, I’m not gonna go there. Don’t use your phones when you’re not supposed to!

The director of Tell My Bones texted yesterday saying that by Sunday night, he would have time to read the script and have comments for me re: the new character arc. I know I still want to work on the final bit of dialogue before the final song, but I am really eager to hear what he thinks of the new stuff. Because, honestly, I think this play is just about almost entirely finished!!!!! (Until it goes into actual table-reads…)

But this also means that I have all of today and tomorrow to either get to work on the new website, or even maybe take a little break and just do Booty Core (see yesterday’s post) and then relax!! Who knows? We shall see.

Meanwhile, have a happy Saturday, gang, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning. I just love the atmosphere of this entrancing song! From 2009, “Listen the Snow is Falling” by Thea Gilmore (but it’s from the Lennon/Ono Wedding Album, originally, but this version is just so hypnotic.). All righty. I love you guys. See ya.

“Listen the Snow is Falling”

Listen, the snow is falling over town
Listen, the snow is falling everywhere
Between Empire State Building
And between Trafalgar Square
Listen, the snow is falling over town

Listen, the snow is falling over town
Listen, the snow is falling everywhere
Between your bed and mine
Between your head and my mind
Listen, the snow is falling over town

Between Tokyo and Paris
Between London and Dallas
Between your love and mine
Listen, the snow is falling everywhere

Snowdrift, snowfall, snowfall
Listen

c – 1969 John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Oops! Another One That I Forgot to Title!!

January 31, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

You know, I started working out religiously when I was 12 because, culturally, it’s just what you did. You were supposed to stay fit. Not because you needed to be “fit” at age 12, but because you were setting up good habits for the rest of your life. (Seriously.) (And this was before junk food and fast food took over the whole nation. I actually did not know anyone, yet, who was overweight.)

It’s sort of weird, right? How my entire life seems to have been about making sure I look really good when I finally die.

But, anyway. By “culturally” I’m talking about upper-middle-class white Midwestern America, because that’s what we were when I was 12. In 1972.

And I wouldn’t have dreamed of not working out. I was told to work out, so I did. Back then, it was calisthenics. In fact, when I was 11, I won one of those President’s Physical Fitness awards in gym class, which was all about calisthenics. The award was a congratulatory letter from the President of the United Sates and a patch that looked like this (mine was a “1” not a “3”). And when I won mine, guess who was President??!! Nixon. (Man, I wish I’d kept that letter!) Anyway, it looked like this:

So, from a wee bonny age, even the President of the United States, marred as he was by scandals that seem so harmless nowadays, urged me to get off my tiny butt and stay in shape!

And so I’ve just always done that. For a long time, it was calisthenics. And I mean, a really long time. And then, in the 1980s, it was aerobics. That was the craze. I did that for years, and that was actually really fun. In fact, Cher made a couple of aerobics videos that were really great. I loved those.

I also got into “the gym” stuff–free weights, rowing machines, stationary bikes, treadmills. I loved all that stuff. (Except when it came time to get rid of them. That part is never fun.) (And I recall one afternoon, when I was still living in the hellhole tenement apartment on E.12th Street in the East Village, one of my 5 lb. free weights accidentally rolled out the open 5th-story window, and as I was racing down 5 flights of stairs to get to the street, I’m envisioning someone dead on the sidewalk with a fractured skull, and me facing Manslaughter charges and a trip to Rikers Island, all expenses paid by the City of New York… but what I found, thank god, was a little Puerto Rican boy, walking off with it and I had to beg him to give it back, as he loudly proclaimed the “finder’s keepers” rule.)

Anyway!!! Yes. So, I have been doing yoga now for about 13 years. It has kept me sane and it also helped me stop drinking myself to death, back when I first moved back to Ohio to look after my ailing adoptive mother, and then found out that I had made just a horrible error in judgment. Moving back here was just a terrible, terrible mistake.

And since the ill-advised move back to Ohio coincided with the man I loved turning out to have a horrible gambling habit that wiped me out of my entire life savings — including a $9000 check from the insurance company to get a new roof put on my house (as much as you might truly love somebody, you know, think really, really hard about giving them one of your ATM cards. Seriously. Or, if you do, then check your bank balance, like, every 5 minutes.). And that horrible thing happened right when the world economy tanked and ravaged the publishing industry, putting 4 of my primary publishers out of business on the very same day…

Yes, when all of that happened at once, and I woke up every single morning wanting to commit suicide (and I continue to give thanks to the beautiful and gifted writer/publisher/editor Sean Meriwether in NYC — of Velvet Mafia fame — for taking so many of my distraught phone calls back then and helping me not kill myself) — well, I ultimately chose heavy drinking instead. And, you know, that’s gonna kill you, too. So truly, yoga saved me. It did. A couple of my girlfriends back in NYC who were really worried about me persuaded me to at least try yoga, and I wound up loving it on so many levels and it did really save my life.

So I’ve been a yoga-type gal for 13 years now. But yesterday, for whatever inexplicable reason, I decided to buy a 21-day video Pilates-type workout program, called Booty Core. I’m not sure what possessed me to suddenly switch it up — I’m not, like, obsessed with my butt or anything. I’m not even obsessed with working out; it’s just something I’ve always done. But you know what? I’m pushing 60 now, and back around the holidays, I was hanging out with a female friend who is 32. And a pen rolled off the table and down to the floor and then under the bar a little bit. So I got down on the floor — actually knelt all the way down and reached under the bar and got the pen. And she was literally aghast. She said, “How did you do that? At your age?”

I was, like, mystified. “How did I do what?”

“Get all the way down on the floor like that and then get right back up?”

Jesus, you know? I just found that so weird. And then she said, “I can’t even do that!” And she’s only 32-fucking-years old! It was just so weird. And I guess I thank god for President Richard Milhous Nixon and all the good habits he instilled in me — and trust me, that’s not a thing I ever thought I would find it in me to say.

So. I’m gonna try Booty Core for 21 days and see if maybe I can pick up a lot more pens from the floor!

On another topic.

Only a couple of photos posted to Instagram last night from the first Conversation in Brussels with Nick Cave. Although there were quite a few posts, but only, like, 2 people actually took photos during the show. But everybody who posted, of course, loved it. And it sounds like maybe he’s doing a few songs from Ghosteen now. (?) Tonight is the last night of the Conversations tour. I’m guessing he will continue to have conversations, but none that we are invited to attend (even if we pay him!!) and that just sucks!

I’m sorry, I don’t have a photo credit for this. I grabbed it from the ticket sales site in the Netherlands.

I am going to go out on a limb here and encourage you to never attend a Conversation with Nick Cave. Because then you will never, ever want it to end. (And if you slavishly follow the posts on Instagram, as I do, you will see that I am not the only one who says this!!) I imagine that, if for some inexplicable yet heavenly reason, I ever ran into him on the street, I would dig out whatever loose change I could find in my pockets, hand it to him and try to get him to answer a question for me. Any question. (ME: “Here!! I have 14 cents. Will you please tell me what it was like the first time you had –“)

Because his answers are awesome.

Which reminds me, that the very moment I posted to the blog here yesterday, Nick Cave sent out another one of his Red Hand Files letter things. And it was uncanny. Whoa, like, it made me want to go right back to the blog and remove my post. If you recall yesterday’s post, it was all about my trying to come to terms with how fucking strange my writing always is. And yesterday’s Red Hand Files was all about whether or not you had to be mentally ill to be a great artist…

Anyway… my own fucking insanity aside, it was another really great Red Hand Files, because he is just so eloquent. And I’m just so frustrated that his In Conversations are going to end. Again.

Okay. I really gotta get moving here. Peitor will be calling from West Hollywood momentarily because we have to work on our micro-script and, of course, now the pressure feels sort of intense. Like, you know, we actually have to finish this darn thing, make the video, then make about 8 more…(!!)

For whatever weird reason, this song was in my head the moment I woke up this morning, and so I played it throughout breakfast and I’m leaving you with it today!! From the 1960 Broadway musical Camelot. (Yes, the very year I was born.) “How to Handle A Woman.” As sung here by Richard Burton. Okay, thanks for visiting, gang. I hope today is good to you, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys. See ya.

“How To Handle A Woman”

“How to handle a woman?
There’s a way, ” said the wise old man,
“A way known by every woman
Since the whole rigmarole began.”
“Do I flatter her?” I begged him answer.
“Do I threaten or cajole or plead?
Do I brood or play the gay romancer?”
Said he, smiling: “No indeed.
How to handle a woman?
Mark me well, I will tell you, sir:
The way to handle a woman
Is to love her… simply love her…
Merely love her… love her… love her.”

c – 1960 Lerner & Loewe

A Turn in the Road

January 30, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I guess my life is getting ready to be different.

You know how you can feel it — that things are changing? The way you’re perceiving your life, or the reality of your life, or maybe what you think is the reality of your life?

I guess I started feeling it the other night, when Peitor began texting about certain new goals he had for Abstract Absurdity — our production company — and I realized that my perceptions of that part of my life were shifting. And not just realizing I was going to have to go to LA more often. But realizing the full scope of the micro-shorts that he and I are creating — they are extremely strange. Visually, they’re abstract; story-wise, they’re absurd. And they’re super short. But they rely heavily on the vision of the directors of New Wave foreign cinema. From 50 years ago, basically.

And I think it’s strange that he and I know all these films. The other day, we were working out a shot of a sexual assault that needs to be viewed from the POV of inside an overturned vacuum cleaner, and Peitor wanted to include the sound of the vacuum cleaner bag deflating/sighing. And I said, “how are we going to get that?” And he said, “We’ll just make it up. Do something ‘Jacques Tati.'” And I said okay.

And then I thought that it’s so weird that I’ve seen most of Jacques Tati’s films, so I knew what he meant. Why have I seen all of those Jacques Tati films? Have you? I mean, really; why? What is my life?

And then the new section of Tell My Bones — if I can use a pun without meaning to — dramatically shifts the scope of that play. In one 3 or 4 minute song, I’ve managed to visually push it into the areas of lynchings and slave auctions and the extreme racism of alleged white “Christians.” I still haven’t heard back from the director but I know he is going to be, at the very least, taken aback by where I took the storyline, and how I took it there. Where did it come from? The only thing I really know is that it took me a few weeks and a lot of nausea to get it there.

Then yesterday, I spent 9 hours doing another edit of Blessed By Light. It didn’t actually need much real editing, just some punctuation tweaking here & there. And then I sent it off to yet another small press. (I still haven’t heard back from any of them.) But after reading it again, from start to finish, without having read it like that in about 7 months, I was struck anew by how strange it is.

I love reading it. I love that I wrote it. But I still don’t understand what it actually is, besides a short “experimental novel.” Which I guess is just a really handy label for saying: “I wrote this but I don’t understand what it is.”

And I saw that this same small press publishes chap books – of poetry and fiction. And I thought, but my chap book (In the Shadow of Narcissa) is nonfiction. It’s flash-nonfiction. It’s a flash-nonfiction memoir chap book.

You know, leave it to me to be hard at work on something that doesn’t actually have a ready category. Yet again. ( I have done this more times than you can possibly imagine, throughout my career.)

And I have just been working really, really hard for like the last 17 months. Without a break. Going from project to project, and then back again. And I am so incredibly happy with how everything is turning out. But everything I’m doing is so strange.

And when I was pouring my first cup of coffee this morning, it occurred to me that my writer-friend in Brussels is correct — Blessed By Light is a weird title. No one on Earth will understand what it means and they’ll think it’s some sort of New Age-Christian book. But what it is, is a fictional American rock & roll legend thinking about his life– and doing stuff, falling in love, talking about his life, his career, trying to deal with his family, his best friend’s death, having to quit smoking — in the final year of his life. That’s all it is. (Except that he thinks his life is beautiful.)

“The Guitar Hero Goes Home” is a chapter title, but it’s probably a better title for the whole book — with “home” meaning “heaven” or something like that.

Even though Neptune & Surf has been around now for over 20 years, no one ever related to that title, either. They always thought it was going to be about the ocean and the planets or something. Or mythology. But it’s named after 2 streets in Coney island — in Brooklyn. The French publisher thought “Neptune Avenue” made more sense as a title, and they were completely right. It made way more sense.

Anyway. I don’t want to belabor the nonsensical aspects of my life — of which there are many. I’m only saying that I can feel my life shifting. From the creative process, to the going-back-out-into-the-world process. And all that it may or may not entail.

And thinking about mortality — will I be around next year, ten years from now, forty years from now? How much of my work will I actually get done? What’s going to be my legacy? I had sort of a life from hell and then wrote a lot of weird stuff. And was alone (with cats) most of the time.

That kind of seems accurate.

This morning, I woke up around 4:30am and the strangest song was going through my head — a Paul McCartney song from 1970: “That Would Be Something.” I loved the McCartney album. I was 9 when it came out and I played it nonstop for months. But I hadn’t thought about that album in years.

Whenever I wake up with a specific song in my head, I play it on YouTube, even before I turn on a light or get out of bed. Because I want to see if the song tells me something, before my mind gets cluttered up with regular life.

So I played the song and it was, like —oh my god— my entire 9 year-old life came right back to me. I was such a strange little kid. Music was my entire world. Playing records, but also playing the piano, the guitar, the violin. Music meant everything to me. I think music was my barricade against my mother. I think it protected me, somehow, and helped me survive. (It didn’t keep me sane, but it helped me survive the insanity, for sure.)

Overall, though, I realized this morning that, for whatever reason, I’m just plain strange. And my life is probably just going to be about writing stuff and putting it into the world. And then over & out.

And I also realized — remember a few months back, when one of my nylon stockings disappeared from the washing machine in the space of 20 minutes? It never ever came back.

So I’m guessing that reality is not just about manifestation, but de-manifestation, as well. Certainly food for thought.

Okay. Nick Cave will be Conversing in Brussels tonight and tomorrow night, and then he’s done. I cannot stress what a dearth came out of Nijmegen. Honestly. I think it was worse than Portland, Oregon. I know he was already in Belgium last year. I don’t remember how it went. (I do remember that Luxembourg’s show looked like it was astoundingly amazing. But I’m not 100% sure how long I plan on remembering all this stuff…)

Anyway. I’m gonna scoot. I have some more boring legal documents I have to go over this morning, and then maybe I’ll just sit and stare for awhile. Not sure yet. But thanks for visiting. Have a super Thursday, wherever you are in the world! You know what I’m leaving you with, but you’re probably not expecting the entire song to have only 2 lines of lyrics…still, it’s a really catchy song. It really is. And for whatever reason, it totally encapsulates my girlhood and makes an uncanny point about where my mind still is.

All righty. I love you guys. See ya.

“That Would Be Something”

That would be something,
It really would be something,
That would be something,
To meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.

Oo-hmm-hmm,
Oo-hmm-hmm,
Oo-hmm-hmm,
Meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.

That would be something,
It really would be something,
Mm, that would be something,
To meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.

Meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.
Meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.

That would be something,
It really would be something,
That would be something,
To meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.
Meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.

Oh, oh.

Meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.
Meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.

Oh!
Oh!

Uh, now, meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.
I meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.
Meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.
Uh, meet you in the falling rain, momma,
Meet you in the falling rain.

c – 1970 Paul McCartney