Tag Archives: Conversations with Nick Cave

I Think I’m Actually Grieving

January 20, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I’ve had a very disconcerting day. Got nothing done. Did go grocery shopping this evening, but then came home and ate tortilla chips for dinner. I never do that. But I just couldn’t really face food.

I’ve wanted to call my dad all day, but I don’t want to suddenly inundate him with “how are you doing”. I called him yesterday after I arrived home. And I know my stepsister was going over to check on him today.

Sort of like with my friend in Houston who has cancer — I’m trying to find the best rhythm or whatever you’d call it. Don’t want to smother anybody with my constant inquiries.

By the way, for now, my friend’s chemo treatments were effective. However, now they’re waiting to see if the tumor grows back. And he still can’t eat, but at least for now, it seems sort of positive. I texted him earlier this evening because I need to check in on somebody, right? If I can’t pester my dad and see if he’s okay, then I must pester my friend and see if he’s okay. I’m definitely a mother hen with no little chicks in sight today… I have to fuss over something though; I just feel so sad.

Well, my friend told me in one of our texts that 2 of our mutual friends from school turned 60 today. (It’s also Sandra Caldwell’s birthday today — but I think she’s only turned 14. I know she’s a little older than I am but not by much.)

So. The roses survived the trip home. I have them in my bedroom and they just look so pretty. Several of the cats have checked them out, but luckily they don’t like to eat roses.

Roses from the funeral, along with the little carved angel from my stepmom’s casket.

On a more uplifting note, though, when I was watering the plants today, I saw that my lemon verbena is shooting forth, after it’s autumnal pruning. That made me happy — to see life in action. That little plant is 14 years old.

And I have a poinsettia that’s several years old now, too. I don’t keep it in the dark or anything, so it doesn’t look like how you think poinsettias should look. But today I saw that it is covered in buds! You can’t really see all the buds from this picture, but here it is anyway.

And I found a little black beetle down on the floor of my laundry room this afternoon. He was on his back, his little legs flailing like mad. So I let him climb onto my finger and I put him onto a surface where he could get better traction than on the laundry room floor. Eventually, he flew off into anther room. So I guess he’s fine.

But it’s great to find unexpected life thriving when you’re feeling sad, isn’t it?

Well, plenty of folks in Baden-Baden posted to Instagram, already. They began posting within 28 minutes of the show ending (not that I was looking at the clock or anything. I just sort of happened to notice the time.). Anyway, though, it was considerate of them to begin posting right away. Saves me from having to scroll through Instagram at 3:02am, if I were to get up and go to the bathroom or something.

Nick Cave seems to have worn a black suit — or maybe dark grey. Hard to tell in the lighting. But many happy campers were in attendance, for sure. There was a total of about 40 seconds of video posted, from 2 different songs he sang. Both of them really slowed down versions of the specific songs. So either he’s deeply depressed or I am. (I’m just kidding. Obviously, I’m the one who’s sad here.)

I did take yet another stab at trying to watch Season 1 of Fleabag tonight. And I’m still just not crazy about it. It’s amazing how much her character evolved by the second season.

My friend in Houston just now texted me again and said that he will turn 60 in late May. I had no idea he was a Gemini. But this of course explains a lot — you know, that Gemini “twin” thing. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I knew my friend (quite well, I thought) for many, many years before I found out that he was gay. Which is just so weird, since I couldn’t be more pro-gay if I tried. I’ve been in the LGBTQ community since before there even was one. I’d always just been so out and above board about myself. Even back in high school, when it used to be really hard for a lot of teenagers to come out as gay, it seems like everybody always felt comfortable confiding in me if they were gay.

I remember back when I was 15 — after I got out of the mental hospital, I went into high school. And all my girlfriends there were either cheerleaders or on the drill team. Just super gung-ho about all that varsity football stuff and I could not have cared less about any of it. By then I had a girlfriend already, and it really bothered these other cheerleading- girls that I was bisexual. It irritated them, because they wanted me to have a boyfriend who was a football player — like they had. They got really insistent about it, and even tried to push me together with this football player named Michael.

I liked him a lot. He was cute and really nice, but I just wasn’t attracted to him at all and I could not care less that he played on the football team. But all of our friends forced us to be alone together in one of the girl’s family rooms. So there we sat; alone together on a Friday night. Very awkward but trying to be nice. And finally he sputters a bit and says, “Marilyn, I know what’s supposed to happen here. And you’re really nice. I like you — but I’m gay.”

Oh my god, I laughed so hard! I told him about me, of course, and why my girlfriends were trying to fix us up. And then we agreed to just tell them we didn’t really hit it off and I kept his secret all through high school. It was too amusing.

Anyway. Here I’d thought I knew who all the gays were in high school, but here one of my closest friends was gay, and I never had a clue.

Oh well. My stomach’s a wreck, gang. I’m so sad. I’m gonna close this. And maybe tomorrow will be better. On a sort of bittersweet note, apparently Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks was released on this day, 45 years ago. Jesus. That was the primary record me and my birth dad listened to when I first went to visit him in Nevada. We played a lot of Country & Western music, too. But he also loved Dylan, as I did. And Blood on the Tracks was always on his little cassette player in his kitchen.

So let’s close with that. I loved that album so fucking much. Have a good night, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. (Btw, “Ashtabula” is in Ohio! Just northeast of Cleveland.)

“You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”

I’ve seen love go by my door
It’s never been this close before
Never been so easy or so slow
I’ve been shooting in the dark too long
When something not right it’s wrong
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Dragon clouds so high above
I’ve only known careless love
It’s always hit me from below
This time around it’s more correct
Right on target so direct
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Purple clover Queen Anne lace
Crimson hair across your face
You could make me cry if you don’t know
Can’t remember what I was thinking of
You might be spoiling me too much love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Flowers on the hillside blooming crazy
Crickets talking back and forth in rhyme
Blue river running slow and lazy
I could stay with you forever
And never realize the time.

Situations have ended sad
Relationship have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m doing
Staying far behind without you
Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m saying
Yer gonna make me give myself a good talking to.

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.

c – 1975 Bob Dylan

Sounds Like Floaty-Mind Syndrome, If You Ask Me

January 20, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Jesus. I really do just drift.

I start thinking about something that’s really important to me — for instance, what I’m planning to work on today; what I want to get done. The next thing I know, my mind has drifted far out to sea and a couple of hours are already gone.

I was impressed, though, that this morning, I was able to remember a lot of stuff. Old foreign movie titles, mostly — and sometimes even the names of the directors of the movies. I was, of course, thinking about Baden Baden, Germany pretty much the moment my eyes opened — at 4:44am. (Nick Cave is having a Conversation there tonight.) I seemed to recall that it was a sort of “spa” town.

And then I wondered: what was the name of that movie — I think it was French. And people seemed to be at some sort of resort — was that Baden Baden? And I recalled that at some distant time, Keith Richards had talked very positively about the film in an interview. And it seemed like it was an interview from before he become just a relentless heroin addict — wherein he hardly gave any interviews. (And after he got clean for real, he became the chattiest guy, ever, hence his memoirs being 547-delightful- pages long.)

Anyway, the title of the film came back to me: Last Year at Marienbad. (I sort of got the “bad” part right.) It was directed by Alain Resnais, but I had forgotten that it was written by the truly iconic writer, Alain Robbe-Grillet, which, alone, explains the entire movie. (Even though it was made far back in 1960, you probably wouldn’t want to watch it nowadays while on drugs — it’ll only make you want to shoot yourself; trying to keep up with it. But if you’re totally sober, man, what an interesting premise. And I think it’s what “real life” is actually like — all the probabilities of physical reality, playing out at once.)

Well, anyway, I drifted far afield from Nick Cave in Baden Baden and was then thinking about The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French, 1972, but directed by Luis Buñuel, who was Spanish). And then recalling Murmur of the Heart and how much I loved that movie (French, 1971, Louis Malle). And then I started wondering if anyone still makes movies anymore that treat incest in a positive, thoughtful way — within an intensely complicated, affluent family. (In this case, mother-son incest, where the dad’s a successful gynecologist.) And I figured, probably not, because nowadays, everything is all about how horrifically we’re all treated, assuming we aren’t just making movies about comic book Super Heroes, fighting against Evil.

I don’t know, it seems kind of regrettable to me that the nature of storytelling in film has changed so drastically — in a way, exploratory thinking itself has sort of been censored. And also this seeming need, at least in the Western world, to be so critical and eager to lay blame on others and on Governments, without wanting to spend too much time wondering what delicate thing we might have learned on our difficult journey…

A thing I don’t seem to be able to ever stop doing…

Anyway, a couple of hours zipped by. I was still laying in bed, in the dark, drinking my coffee. These thoughts just kept coming. Then I forced myself to get out of bed — and stay out of bed — and then found myself sitting on the end of the bed, halfway between being still in my PJs and out of my PJs, and found myself thinking about this nature of probabilities and wondering how many various probabilities could be at play in my own life — you know, if my mom hadn’t given me up for adoption, or if I’d been adopted by different parents, etc. How are those probable lives for me playing out? Are they affecting how I’m thinking right now? Did I have a drastically different past? Am I already dead in some of those probable lives?

And then I found myself on this other path, wherein I decided I wasn’t looking back anymore. You know, not going to think about the past, or if I did think about it, I wanted only to imagine how it would have felt had it gone differently or gone better. But mostly — just don’t think about the past (“that was then, this is now”). Only see here & now and look forward, imagining the best outcomes from now on.

But then almost another hour had passed and I was still sitting there, half-undressed on my bed.

(I also sort of wonder about how to contend with writing two memoirs if I’m not going to think about the past. Could get tricky.)

And here’s a photo of Weenie, sitting on my night table as the sun was coming up:

Okay, well. My “ex” in Seattle did indeed send me a number of links about the predictions for the Year of the Rat. They seem pretty positive in regards to my career. Actually, really positive about the career. Not so positive about anything else, so I decided to ignore what I didn’t like. But both East & West zodiac systems seem to think my career will go well this year.

One of the Chinese sites predicted that my love life would be very interesting, in that I would fall in love with someone who was exactly like myself and the relationship would be like a Hall of Mirrors. (They said this like it was a good thing.)

Well, that certainly gave me pause, as I tried to figure out what the hell that meant.

I did like the idea of a relationship that was like a Hall of Mirrors — well, I liked the sound of it; I liked the imagery. But I can’t really grasp what it’s supposed to mean, besides constant reflections, back & forth.

And it’s interesting to think that it’s a prediction meant for everybody who was born under the sign of the Rat. (In my case, the Metal Rat.) Every 12 years, a ton of people are born under the sign of the Rat, and all of us are going to be engaged this year in a positive relationship that will be like a Hall of Mirrors. That’s a heck of a lot of people walking around the planet who won’t really know where they’re going, lost in that Hall of Mirrors and all. So I’m guessing life is just going to get interesting for absolutely everyone in 2020, if only by default.

(And isn’t a Hall of Mirrors a Western thing, or did we get that from the Chinese? Do they have Fun Houses? It’s kind of hard to imagine that. I don’t know.) (Although, back when Neptune & Surf was first published, another writer who’d tried to read it said that it was confusing — “like a Chinese Fun House” — with the opium den, the Chinese prostitutes, the Cuban guitar player, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the fire at Dreamland…)

Oh well. Can’t please everybody.

On that note, though, I did manage to eventually get dressed here, brush my teeth and all that. And I do really have to get the day started!! (Although everything just feels different today, you know? Like I woke up in a different reality, somewhat similar to the one I recognized last night, but somehow different. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though.)

Okay. Have a good Monday wherever you are in the world. (It’s a holiday here in the States — Martin Luther King Day. Although I’ve noticed that now people just call it “MLK.” They don’t say the whole name anymore, or even the “day” part. Just “MLK.” I guess there’s not enough time to say the whole thing anymore because it would give us less time to look at our phones.) All righty. I was back to George Harrison this morning, for whatever reason — probably subconsciously thinking about Jesus and how glorious it felt to see those icons of him in the church at my stepmom’s funeral. So I’ll leave you with that. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

Life Resumes

January 19, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Well, through some quirk or miracle, all the snow has bypassed us. So, even though I love snow, I guess that’s a good thing today. I have to head back home as soon as the sun comes up. I have 7 cats who have been on their own for a couple of days now. (They have plenty of food and water, I’m just worried about the litter boxes…)

It did get really cold here, though. My dad being just shy of 90, turned the heat way up. Luckily my bedroom is in the sunroom — walls of windows. So it’s a lot colder in here than in the rest of the apartment, which feels almost unbearably hot to me! Anyway. It is cold outside today and very windy.

So now we officially embark on a new era. My dad as a widower. And a widower who will have way too much time on his hands, so he’s already worrying about that. I am, too. I asked him if he wanted to come live with me, but he declined. Not just because of the 7 cats, but mostly because he can’t imagine living in the middle of nowhere.

Here, he lives in an Independent Living complex — which means that as soon as anything goes wrong with him physically, the nursing home guarantees him a room. This whole area where he lives is just a massive compound dedicated to old age and dying. (It’s also really nice and really expensive.) But I guess it’s best for him to just stay put here, even though he’s by himself now. Obviously, though, I’m going to have to make a lot more trips back here from now on.

Which is good, because I only have to go to NYC, Toronto, and LA a lot this year… Anyway.

My first husband, being Chinese, alerted me yesterday in an email that the Chinese New Year is almost upon us and it is once more time for it to be the Year of the Rat!!! Which is my year!! He is currently trying to locate my forecast for the year. He said that, in general, though, it’s going to be a good year for all the signs.

I can already feel that this is a transformative year for me — work, money, emotional well-being. Those things are already changing in a pronounced way and it’s only mid-January. I guess maybe I need to figure out what to do about my “love” situation. I don’t know. The man I love couldn’t be more married and unavailable if he tried. I think priests who are married to God are technically more available than he is, so my love is absolutely just thrown into my work. I try to at least put my love into the world, in that way, because that’s sort of the only real place it can go.

Sometimes it makes me feel indescribably insane, though, so maybe this will be the year that I deal with that, too. I honestly don’t know. But everything else in my life is truly transforming. And for now I’m okay with love being an intensely private thing that only goes out into the world. It certainly helps my writing. So we will see.

Okay. Well.

Its been an intense trip. A lot of old painful family issues hovered close to the surface for me this whole time, but I was able to not be held prisoner by them, and to let the past be what it was and just move on. The one glaring constant reminder of old history was that my older brother isn’t here. And even though I haven’t seen him in many years, not a soul even asked about him or mentioned him.

Maybe I will go into more detail about all that some other time, I don’t know. I did find it disconcerting that everyone kept thanking me for coming to the funeral to support my dad or to support them in the loss of their mother. No one seemed to notice at all that she had been my stepmom for over 30 years. Stepmothers are big deals, you know? Think of it — Cinderella had quite a monumental stepmother; so did Snow White!! My stepmother happened to be incredibly kind and loving to me— and considerate and compassionate. For some reason, that doesn’t seem to have made an impression on anyone else.

Anyway, I think that metaphysical pondering is best left for another blog post. I need to get moving here. Have a good Sunday, wherever you are in the world! Nick Cave resumes his Conversations in Europe tomorrow, so that will give me something wonderful to ponder again for a couple weeks! Meanwhile, thanks for visiting!! I love you guys. See ya.

Farewell To A Truly Splendid Year!

December 31, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Probably the high point of my year was discovering that Chesterfield cigarettes were now available for purchasing at the gas station here in Crazeysburg!! (Even though I still don’t smoke!)

I’m kind of kidding, gang, and kind of not — because it sort of symbolized to me that eventually the thing you really want, or miss, or crave, or desire, or regret its absence and fervently wish to have it return — eventually, it all comes back around. There’s nothing to fear, or to seriously regret, you know? Everything changes. And that’s a blessing we can all share in.

You know, on Instagram, I’m noticing that a lot of people consider attending one of the Conversations with Nick Cave to be the highlight of their whole year. And I think I have to concur. Especially the one at Lincoln Center.

However, I think if I had to distill it down to my absolutely favorite moment of all of 2019 — even while I still wasn’t smoking! — it was after that show at Lincoln Center was over and I was back in that strange Airbnb in Midtown Manhattan, alone in my bed in the dark, all the city lights shining through the Venetian blinds regardless. And I was listening to the Boys Next Door on YouTube, singing “Shivers.” Nick Cave had sung it during the In Conversation that evening and he’d done such a stunning job of singing it, all these years later. And it was so cool to sort of let time evaporate for a little while and see Rowland Howard alive again, too, and everyone just so darn young. And it is such a beautiful, beautiful song.

That moment in my bed, listening to that song, was my absolute favorite moment of the whole year.

It was such a good year for me, gang. The best year of my whole life. Not that there were a lot of highs in it, because actually there weren’t. There was just a steady feeling that I was making it out of the darkness for good. And the only really low point of the year was Daddycakes dying in the spring, so unexpectedly.

Here is a photo of him with Huckleberry. It’s at the old house, at the top of the stairs. Probably around 2014. It’s sort of a strange photo but I just love how Huckleberry is looking at him with so much love.

Okay. Have a really wonderful time saying adieu to 2019 and hola to 2020!! You know what I’m leaving you with!! Thanks for spending time in my room this year! I love you guys. See ya!

Shivers

I’ve been contemplating suicide
But it really doesn’t suit my style
So I guess I’ll just act bored instead
And contain the blood I would have shed

She makes me feel so ill at ease
My heart is really on its knees
But I wear a poker face so well
That even mother couldn’t tell

And my baby’s so vain she is almost a mirror
And the sound of her name sends a permanent shiver down my spine

I keep her photo against my heart
Cause in my life she plays a starring part
All alcohol and cigarettes
There is no room for cheap regret

She makes me feel so ill at ease
My heart is really on its knees
But I wear a poker face so well
That even mother couldn’t tell

And my baby’s so vain she is almost a mirror
And the sound of her name sends a permanent shiver down my spine

c – 1979 Rowland S. Howard

What’s Another 18 Years, Right?

December 14, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

I know it probably seems odd that I remember the anniversaries of the deaths of all my previous cats, yet I do.

Yesterday marked the 18th anniversary of the death of Kitty, the stray kitten that had followed Valerie home one afternoon when Val lived out in Queens. Valerie had 7 cats and, at that point, I had none and so she brought the kitten over to my apartment in the East Village. Kitty lived to be 18 years old.

I thought it was kind of interesting that she lived 18 years and that, as of yesterday, she’d been dead for 18 years.

Gosh, I loved that cat. She was one of those cats that followed me from room to room, slept with me, was always with me. So unlike the feral cats I have now.

Anyway. Just more time, zipping past. I wanted to post a photo of her but the photos are all packed away. I couldn’t find them. But she was a sweet, tiny, mostly black cat with little patches of white. She was devoted to me. She truly was.

Okay.

Work with Peitor was intense again yesterday. We seem to have reverted back to the original storyline of the script — for the most part. It’s really just taking us forever to write an 8 minute movie. But I still think it’s such a great script!!! Just so unexpected in every way.

Eventually we’ll finish it. Peitor’s already sort of casting it and also meeting potential cinematographers. So we are sort of moving ahead while trying to script it. But it is indeed taking forever. We’re still going shot by shot, and the set up for some of these shots will be very complicated when the shot itself might last for about 2 seconds of screen time. The whole film is like this. It literally is going to take us forever.

The next film we want to do will also last about 8 minutes — and the premise for that one is also absolutely absurd. I’m guessing it’ll take us a year to write that 8 minute film. And then the next one will be about 15 minutes, and that one requires several locations so I’m guessing that film will take us 10 years…

Meanwhile. It’s still really fun. And I imagine that next year, I’m just going to be really busy.

Since today is Saturday, there was another one of those things on Instagram where they post approximately one minute from one of the Conversations with Nick Cave. Again, this one was from one of the Conversations in NY.

I really miss it — those Conversations. I think about them a lot. He has some more coming up in Europe in early 2020.

I can’t imagine being back in NY next year and not seeing Nick Cave talking… Ah well. As usual these days, life goes on.

I don’t know about you guys, but I get the feeling that next year will be sort of momentous. During my morning meditations this last week, I have felt it in a pronounced way. So many projects underway over here. Most of them likely to come to some sort of fruition in 2020, or at least be getting underway. It’s going to be so interesting.

All right, well, it’s sort of that time of year: mid-December makes me get very contemplative about life — the path I’m on and where it will lead. My mom said that in the Old Farmers Almanac, they predict snow for this Christmas. I’m not planning on traveling at all, so it will be nice to just be cozy at home, alone in all that snow. Well, alone with 7 cats. Think about life. Watch some movies. We shall soon see what the next year brings!

Kara has been in California, visiting one of her sons. She got home last night and I’m going to see her here soon, so I’m looking forward to that. I missed her! She’s pretty much my only local friend, and even though she’s originally from NY, she’s never heard any of Nick Cave’s music but she lets me go on and on about it and always acts very, very interested!! So, obviously, I’ve missed her!!

All righty, I’m gonna scoot. Hope Saturday’s been good for you! Thanks for visiting. I was listening to those old Robert Johnson recordings at breakfast today. I leave you with one of my favorites, “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom.” Okay. I love you guys! See ya!

She Could Benefit From A Brain Monitor, Don’t You think?

November 30, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Jesus, you know?

Not only do I need a keeper (and a handyman) but now I think I could use someone who limits the number of ideas my brain is allowed to have in any given year. Or day. Or perhaps every hour.

I’ve been working on Thug Luckless today and feeling like I don’t want him to just be a porn novel. Because I love this character. (He’s an AI sex robot in a post-apocalyptic town full of jaded, sex-starved broads.) And I’m really unsatisfied with everything I’ve written so far, because I want to rewrite it now with an actual story arc and a character arc, even though I want to keep the overall plot the same.

I simply cannot continue with it without making it a better book.

And then, of course, once I realized that, I wanted to bang my head on my keyboard because that means a whole lot more work — meaning brain work — is going to be involved. So, like, what the fuck?? Right? I have so many fucking projects.

But now that I’ve come to this understanding about Thug nothing less is going to satisfy me. So it’s just frustrating, you know? Especially since I live in a drug-free world and have to rely strictly on the adrenaline I was born with — except for caffeine…

Which reminds me that there is this Nick Cave thing on Instagram and I can’t really figure out what it is. (BTW, this sudden segue has nothing to do with drugs, it has to do with ideas.) Every Saturday, it posts a brief audio clip from one of his In Conversations. And even while I like listening to it (today he was answering a question that had something to do with his ideas), but it makes me ponder where this audio recording comes from. (The last several have been from his Conversations in NYC. With one from Helsinki.)

I’m not sure why I have to ponder absolutely everything. I can’t just, you know, accept a thing at face value and move on with my life. I have to bring everything to a grinding halt and look at it and examine it and wonder: Who’s doing this? Where’d they get this from? How come they’re allowed to upload it? How come I’m following this — how did I find it in the first place? I have no clue; I only know I’ve been following it for a while. And its tag line is “The Secret Red Hand Files” — so what does that mean?

Anyway. It posts every Saturday. And I thought today was interesting in that I, personally, am getting a little overwhelmed with ideas, here, that could easily take me to the end of my life.

So, as I completely re-think Thug and try now to sort of outline it as actual fiction and not simply regard it as “porn,” I find my mind just wandering like crazy. You know, I start just staring at the wall and suddenly wondering if I could name my Top 5 favorite Tom Petty songs. I’ve never tried to do that before and it turns out that it’s really hard. I would need to have room for at least 10. Because, you know, my Top 4 would probably be “Runaway Trains,” “How Many More Days,” “Rhino Skin,” “You & Me,” and then suddenly I need to cram about 6 more songs in the number 5 slot. And then I’d have to cram the entirety of his album Hard Promises in there, too.

And meanwhile, Thug Luckless is not getting re-written, and the director is texting to schedule a chat with me for Monday so that we can get a plan in place for the first workshop in NYC re: Tell My Bones, and Sandra is texting about the Christmas promotion and my brain starts wondering when I’m going to do those final needed revisions on the play?

So this is where I decide that I’m gonna go take a shower…

Okay. Hope Saturday’s been good for you! And if you’re one of those hardcore football fans (which I am not), I hope your team’s winning. See ya.

Can you say 1979?

I Guess That’s Just the Kind of Mood I’m in Today!

November 15, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Some days you just wake up like this, right? Wondering about all that Action for Men!

(And I sure as heck want to know the “10 Ways to Spot a No Limit Girl,” don’t you?) (I’m guessing, the first way to spot her is that she has to live in Crazeysburg; as for the 9 other ways, I just can’t even imagine…)

I am, of course, just kidding. I have limits. (I have two, actually.)

Okay, truth be told — I did absolutely no writing yesterday!! I just didn’t feel like it. For most of the day, my laptop was actually even closed. And I spent a great big bunch of time getting back into bed. It was really fun. I was reading and stuff. Things I haven’t had the brain-space to do in a couple months.

Today, though, I woke up back in writing mode. Still not sure if it will be the new segment of In the Shadow of Narcissa, or Letter #5 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. (Titled “Hymn to the Dark” — I get the impression, that one’s going to be sort of intense and take a lot out of me. Not sure yet why.) And I also still have Thug Luckless hanging out, waiting for more adventures. But that also takes a lot out of me, even though it’s pure porn. For those of you who think (or perhaps know first hand) that writing pure porn is easy — I beg to differ! Writing bad porn is easy; writing porn that people are willing to pay money for in this day & age of nonstop free porn, is a whole other story (pun intended, I guess). It’s just as time-consuming as writing anything else.

Well, my stupid bathroom scale claims I put on 2 more pounds during the night. Apparently, lying around and reading is really fattening. I seriously have to break down and buy another new scale — one that actually works this time. I would hate to develop some sort of weird eating disorder, all because of a diabolically Sadistic bathroom scale… (It is starting to fuck with my head a little bit. I got out of the shower and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror: have I actually put on 9.3 pounds in the past 3 days? It doesn’t look like it, and yet, my scale says otherwise. I guess those 7 almonds have to go. And the 4 ounces of organic cranberry juice; I don’t suppose I really need that…) It’s just ridiculous.

I actually do need the almonds and the cranberry juice! I am a woman of a certain age!!! Every single thing I fucking eat every single day is expertly calculated for aging as seamlessly as possible around here. You would be bored to tears (yes, you would literally cry) if I told you the really boring — and pathetically short — list of indescribably healthy things I eat around here every single day. I really need to get rid of the stupid scale.

Okay, then. Onward!!

My progress with the cats has been sort of a little miracle around here. After 7 years. I don’t know what’s causing it, but it makes me really happy. Now, when I first sit up in bed in the morning (in the dark — it always has to still be dark out), Huckleberry and Doris now come scampering into the bedroom and then follow me into the bathroom to be petted! I can pet them kind of a lot now, and Huckleberry always purrs. And now 2 other cats are starting to join us in there — Lucie and Weenie. Although, they stay out of petting reach, but they are definitely in there now, too. They are trying to figure out what’s going on, because Huckleberry and Doris do seem to be really, really happy while they’re getting petted. (Weenie lets me pet him once a day, as I put his bowl of food in front of him down in the kitchen, so he might actually get brave. Lucie used to let me pet her like crazy when Daddycakes was still alive, but only if I was petting him at the same time. Since he died, she has steered clear of letting me touch her.)

Huckleberry, Weenie and Lucie, back when we lived briefly at the rental house and I used to force them to work really, really hard!

I try to just be so patient with them, and go at whatever pace they’re comfortable with, because, sweet as they look, they are still wild animals and the bottom line is that they will attack — become all claws and teeth and draw blood and break skin and such. But I can’t tell you how badly I want to just scoop them up and hug them and cuddle them, tote them with me in my arms from room to room and happily babble at them… I think they’d rather die than endure that, at this point, anyway. And perhaps even forever. We’ll see.

Okay, well. I’m gonna get started here. Figure out what I’m going to work on today. (Next week, I’m back on schedule with Peitor again with the micro-short script, too, so I do have to get back on track here today.)

I’m still in Ghosteen mode around here, and still listening to “Night Raid” over and over, trying to figure it out. Although, at the In Conversation at Town Hall in NYC, someone asked Nick Cave what the song “Girl in Amber” was about and he said that he didn’t know. So, you know, I could be on a fool’s errand here. Who knows. And I do know there is a fine line between pondering and fixating — it’s actually a fine line that I’m quite familiar with! In fact, I guess you could say I call that space between pondering and fixating my home away from home!

But anyway, since I am still focused on “Night Raid,” I will instead leave you with the song that was not only in my head when I awoke this morning at 5:30am, but I actually found myself singing it — which is sort of a tall order at 5:30 in the morning because it’s super passionate. It’s another song from my wee bonny girlhood. It was a hit the year I was born (1960), but I had the record as a little girl, and passionate little girl that I was, I used to love this song. (And I think, now more than ever, for various reasons that I’m not going to blog about, it resonates with me.)

Okey-dokey! Have a wonderful Friday! Wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

“Where The Boys Are”

Where the boys are, someone waits for me
A smilin’ face, a warm embrace, two arms to hold me tenderly

Where the boys are, my true love will be
He’s walkin’ down some street in town and I know he’s lookin’ there for me

In the crowd of a million people I’ll find my valentine
And then I’ll climb to the highest steeple and tell the world he’s mine

‘Til he holds me I’ll wait impatiently
Where the boys are, where the boys are
Where the boys are, someone waits for me

c – 1960 Greenfield Howard, Sedaka Neil

It Was A Miracle!!

October 16, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

JESUS (speaking quietly to Simon-Peter): “Though I had nothing to do with it, it was an actual miracle — her cats did not go near that fucking tree.”

SIMON-PETER (quietly): “I cannot fucking believe it. Jesus. That’s awesome.”

Yes!! From Christ’s mouth to your ears! My cats did not go anywhere near that tree.

You know how cats are so good at math? How you can actually see them calculating the distance of something they wish to jump up on to?

Image result for math equations for calculating distance — The actual formula that cats use to calculate the distance up to a tree that isn’t covered with books

Well, when they looked up at the tree, they saw this:

Which led them to think THIS:

And the problem of my cats shredding the fronds off of my helpless palm tree, eating the fronds and then vomiting them back up all over the carpeting has at last been solved!!

Isn’t math great??!!

Well, alas. The photos on Instagram of Nick Cave’s final Conversation of his US tour looked just great. It was mostly photos from the very start of the show, and then two photos from the final song, where he had a guy from the audience come up and sit on the piano bench next to him while he sang “Stagger Lee.” (Nick Cave sang — not the guy from the audience.)

But it looked like a great show. And oddly, it seems like the folks in Los Angeles are more of the rule-following ilk than the folks in San Francisco were. I find that a little ironic. You’d think that in LA, people would be more likely to do whatever they want, but almost all of the photos from last night were from that brief period at the start of the show where they were allowed to take photos. Not so in SF, where you would think they might be more respectful of the other people in the audience…

Anyway, it’s over. I just can’t believe it. For four months, I had my tickets to see him in NYC, and now not only are the NYC shows long gone, but now the tour is completely over. In a heartbeat.

All righty. Well, it is just a really cool day here today, gang. Perfectly fall-like outside. Rainy, chilly, wet autumn leaves scattered everywhere. It just feels so cozy to be inside, looking out at the rain. Drinking my cup of coffee. I have to work on some technical stuff for Tell My Bones here today, then work some more on Thug Luckless. Then maybe go back and do some more work on Tell My Bones. I think it’s just going to be a nicely paced day.

Last night, I spent a lot of time working on Thug Luckless and so it was kind of late when I got around to doing yoga. I had the lights down and I was listening to the 2nd half of Ghosteen. I don’t know if that was the very best idea. You know how, when you’re doing yoga, you’re so focused and anything you hear goes right into your consciousness. I know I keep saying this, but Ghosteen is truly an intensely beautiful album and just so incredibly sad — to me, anyway.

I was in the cool-down part of the yoga when the final song came on (called “Hollywood” but I keep thinking it’s called “Malibu”). The cool-down part of yoga is such a meditative mental place, and that song — the part where Kisa is unable to accept yet that her baby has died, she thinks it’s only sick. Oh my god, that just washed over me like a tidal wave — of love, of loss, of longing. That whole song is almost unbearably exquisite. You should go listen to it wherever you listen to your music.

Okay, I’m gonna scoot!! Have a beautiful, beautiful day, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!

Lo & Behold! Exciting Times!!

October 15, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

Yes, based on the above illustration, you can probably tell, it’s laundry day around here! But that’s not all the excitement.

No!! There’s more!

Late yesterday afternoon, I discovered a little baby mole on the floor of the downstairs bathroom. It seemed thoroughly exhausted from trying to maneuver itself on the linoleum floor. It was very much alive when I found it, but it just couldn’t get any traction and, I’m guessing, couldn’t really see.

I was able to scoop it up and get it back outside BEFORE seven cats found it and tore it to pieces. I cannot emphasize enough just what a relief that was. That poor little thing. I have no clue how it got there, but that bathroom is close to the backdoor that leads directly to the backyard. I’m guessing it is connected to that somehow.

Either that, or one of these spirits here in the house decided that, rather than return my one stocking (see post below somewhere), it would give me a baby mole instead…

Today is the day that I’m bringing all the potted plants indoors for the season. Which means that I have to somehow barricade the palm tree from the cats. I’m going to try just loading piles of books around the tree, and not in neat piles, or anything, but in really precarious piles so that the cats will have nothing to actually grab on to. We’ll see if that works. It’s already gone down to 36 degrees Fahrenheit twice now, so I can’t risk keeping that tree outside any longer.

It’s definitely Nature vs. Nature around here, isn’t it? Either a killing frost or wild & untamed cats…

Big, BIG news from late yesterday evening! Nick Cave & Warren Ellis are doing that symphony thing again with their film scores — this time in Sydney, in early December. I realized this means that, ostensibly, they will have plenty of time between those 2 gigs and Christmas, to fly here to Crazeysburg from Australia and appear with our symphony orchestra, too!

We don’t actually have a symphony orchestra, but I have about 8 or 9 weeks to get the 14 townspeople together, teach them how to play various orchestral instruments and stuff, and then, I don’t know, either build a symphony hall, or use that really old town hall thingie that we already have here, and put on a show. I’m not planning to join the orchestra because I want to be able to actually attend. And since I have this amazing bathroom scale now, that helps me achieve my goal weight several times during the course of a single evening, I know I’ll be able to fit into some sort of amazing couturier gown.

I can just tell it’s gonna be a terrific Christmas…

Anyway. In all seriousness. I’m guessing the Sydney event will be just stunning. I wish I could attend. I really do.

In other good news — yesterday afternoon, Peitor texted. He’s back in LA and we are planning to finally catch up over the phone later today. I’m really looking forward to that. It was the height of summer, the last time we actually talked.

Nick Cave is also having a Conversation in LA later today, as it turns out! But of a much different sort, and it’s the last Conversation of the US tour. (Folks from San Francisco are still posting amazing stuff on Instagram from Sunday. It really looks like the SF show was so cool.) (And it’s a toss up between the theater in SF and that one in Montreal — which one was the most jaw-dropping; they were both just gorgeous venues.)

Okay, well. New topic. About 18 or 19 years ago, I won that award in London for my book, Neptune & Surf — Erotic Writer of the Year. And the organization is now 25 years old. They are having some sort of 25th Anniversary celebration at this year’s awards (in November, in London). They are now called the Sexual Freedom Awards, and they are asking previous winners to contribute a statement about what sexual freedom means in 2019. I get 140 characters (not words, mind you!) to express that. Can you imagine me distilling something like that down to 140 characters??!!

Well, I’m trying…

You know, I remember what I wore to those Awards. I had the prettiest little dress but I don’t recall where I got it from or whatever happened to it. It was black velvet, a real short, billowy skirt and a halter-style top that had criss-cross ties in back. So, clearly, I didn’t wear a bra that night, but back then, I didn’t actually need to. I still had those “modest breasts” back then; I didn’t get the “twin Cadillacs” that I have now until after menopause. (It’s really ironic, because back then, I used to wish for something that could at least fill a push-up bra because I used to spend a fortune on fetish lingerie, and now I wear minimizers because I really, really can’t stand having my tits enter a room before I do. It turns out, I really enjoyed having the figure of a boy but I didn’t know it until it was gone…) And I wore those gorgeous black 4-inch spiked-heel ankle strap open-toed shoes to the Awards. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I bought those shoes in London in 1976, when I was all of 16 years old!! Yes, for some mysterious reason, my mother let me buy a pair of fetish high heels in London when I was only 16. And I still have them, and they are still gorgeous because I have taken really good care of them all these years, but back at those Awards, I was actually able to walk around in those shoes. Not anymore…

The other day, actually, I got out a pair of vintage Gucci high-heels that I’ve had since the 1990s and they still fit. They are gorgeous, too. Copper-colored patent leather pumps, with very pointy toes and a 3 or 4 inch spiked, gold heel. For some reason, I happened to notice the bottoms of the shoes and discovered not a single scuff mark, and that tells me that I never, ever, EVER wore those shoes outside. I find that so (gently) amusing — that I would pay a fortune for a pair of shoes back then, just to wear to bed.

At one point, while married to Wayne, I had something like 32 pairs of high-heeled shoes — most of which, I wore only to bed. (“Bed” being a time-honored euphemism for not actually sleeping.)

It’s just funny to remember all that. I was just insane. I had so many little (expensive) outfits back then. I would sometimes change outfits 2 or 3 times while “not sleeping.” Menopause was actually a blessing to me — to finally be able to calm down a little. It wasn’t exactly 100% fun being so over the top hormonal all the time. It got exhausting.

All righty!! I guess on that lofty note, I will get the day started here, gang. Finish that laundry and start writing so that I can spend time chatting with Peitor without feeling like I’m not getting any work done… I hope you have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. I was listening again to Ghosteen this morning so I won’t regale you with that — you need to go purchase it, instead. (And it really is just so beautiful, gang, you really should buy it.) But I love you guys! See ya.

Me doing laundry just now, here in Crazeysburg! Not quite as glamorous as my wee bonny hormonal-peak years in Manhattan!

Yeah, Baby! “Lazy” is Addictive!!

October 14, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

If you saw my early morning post yesterday, then you saw the view from my bed, as I was watching the sun just barely coming up outside my window, my coffee cup on my night table next to me (you couldn’t see that part, though, because my room was still cozy & dark.)

Here’s the very same view this morning but I stayed in bed even later today!! (I’m guessing you can see, between the 2 photos, how cool this room is when it’s dark and the sun is just barely up.)

Same view from the bed as yesterday but today the sun is up

And I have switched coffee mugs. This is sort of my “November” coffee mug. I’m not sure why I think of it as that. But for some reason, I jumped ahead this morning to the November coffee mug. This morning, it just totally appealed to me…

Coffee next to me on my night table! For some reason, getting out of bed held no appeal today! (That’s my Inner Being Dialogues journal there next to the mug. I’m well into the 3rd journal now. My Inner Being is very chatty.)

I have now managed to force myself out of the bed and am sitting at my desk, blogging. (Yesterday, I blogged from my phone, so reluctant was I to leave the bed.) But I have yet to get dressed here this morning. Which is almost unheard of. I am almost always dressed by the time I sit down at my desk. But this morning, I’m still in my jammies (a photo of which I regaled you with a few days ago — me, wearing my summer PJs in Peitor’s bathroom in West Hollywood last December.) And I’m wearing my blue flannel robe, because it’s chilly.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that last fall, I decided to finally wear the blue flannel robe and claim it as my own. Back then, I said that I had bought it for an older man I had been involved with who left before he had a chance to wear it. But now I am okay with saying that he is dead. Last fall, I said that he “went away”. But what really happened is that he died before he had a chance to wear it. This is the photo I posted one year ago, of me finally wearing his blue flannel robe. (I now consider it my robe. I’m doing totally okay with it.)

Reprint from last fall. This is the robe I’m wearing right now although, unlike last year, I am currently wearing some other stuff under it.

And for no reason whatsoever, I’m posting this photo of me from last February, wearing my favorite blue sweater!! (I originally sent this photo to Valerie in Brooklyn, but I saw it this morning while scrolling for the blue flannel robe!!)

I’ve had this blue sweater for about 12 years now. It is my very favorite sweater. My expression is one of delirium, so I guess I really, really DO love the blue sweater!!!

Well, my gosh!! The photos out of Nick Cave’s Conversation in San Francisco last night were just great! He looked like he was having a really good time. And the theater was beautiful. And that amazing full moon last night — I’m guessing it all came together for a really great show.

Only one more show here in the States, on Tuesday night…. me getting very sad… oh well.

All right, well, lest you think I’m just ridiculously bitchy and hard-assed about spelling (see yesterday afternoon’s post), I just want to stress that her email to me came on the heels of a long, long stream of emails from men who seemed not to care at all that I was actually looking for a woman. And so when an actual woman wrote to me, finally, I could not have been more crestfallen when I discovered that she could not be bothered to use spellcheck and so came across as sort of offensively stupid. I don’t mind if you aren’t super smart, or anything, but come on — at least be smart enough to use fucking spellcheck. Of course, she had no clue that I was a writer. It’s not in my profile. My photo is not even in my profile. But honestly — don’t you try to bring your “A” Game when you’re responding to a person’s ad and you hope they will reply to you? I was figuring, that was her “A” Game and, frankly, it was kinda scary.

But, anyway, I quit the site! Enough. I have to focus on the PLAY. Not on my endlessly erupting libido.

Oh for heaven’s sake, I am just too much sometimes, right?

Okay. Well, I think it’s a national holiday here (Columbus Day). The streets are certainly void of school buses and cars going off to work. A very quiet, lovely sunny morning in October.

And speaking of Peitor in West Hollywood (which I was, quite briefly, a moment ago), and, therefore, of our fledgling micro-short video production company: He has had just heartbreaking issues with both of his elderly parents. His dad in Iowa and his mom in Italy. It has been nonstop now for a few months. Not only does he have to constantly travel to both of these far-flung places — meaning, drop everything and jump on a plane because something dire is happening — but it is also just draining his whole heart, mind, body; everything.

He and I text sporadically but have not had a chance to even talk on the phone since before I went to NY. We were all set to get back on schedule with the micro-scriptwriting and then he was suddenly called off to Iowa again because of something dire with his dad.

So that has been just very intense. I really miss him and our weekly phone chats. He really knows how to make me laugh. We had such a great time last December, when it was just him and me together, alone, for nearly a week because his husband was off producing some TV show in Toronto… God, did we laugh!! Well, we also had time to talk about serious stuff, too.

Peitor last December, on the lobby grounds of the Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood. This is two doors down from Peitor’s apartment building.

All righty! Gonna put on some real clothes now and get to work around here. I hope you have a really good Monday, wherever you are in the world, gang!! Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.