Tag Archives: Nick Cave Red Hand Files

Still Alive & Well!!

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Yes! I am talking about the petunias!

There is a layer of frost on my grown-up car this morning. There is frost on the rooftops. Frost on the lawns and on all the autumn leaves lying all over the lawns. And yet, the petunias are doing just fine.

I guess it has to be a real killer “killer frost” to faze these petunias.

So that was a sort of little happy burst of wonder when I went downstairs for breakfast this morning at 4am.

I also saw that another new song was dropped for the upcoming album, Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace. And this one is actually a new song — “Euthanasia.” It was in my Amazon music library this morning. I just love this song. It is so pretty.

And while I’m thinking of it, I forgot to post yesterday that Nick Cave sent out another Red Hand File on Thursday that was very interesting, regarding a reader’s concerns about Narcotics Anonymous and stemming the seemingly endless tide of heroin addiction. You can read it here.

And also this morning, someone from Europe that I follow on Instagram, who only posts photos and quotes (in English) of various  writers and poets from all over the world, asked if he could quote me on his page today. I was so flattered. In all honesty, I love his page because I have found out about some really interesting writers and poets from South America and Europe by following his page.

He quoted from the ending of Neptune & Surf, and I sent him a photo of me, taken by Valerie while we were at Coney Island. This was during the years that I was actually writing Neptune & Surf. (N & S takes place on Coney Island in 1955.) (The photo is from 1994 or 1995.)

Since I now know how to capture people’s Instagram feeds, I share it with you here. (I really was so touched, gang.)

So my morning has been off to a pretty good start around here today.

I’m planning on just spending the day working on the new erotic short story, “Novitiate.” I’m at one of those junctures where the story begins to just go off the charts in terms of the eroticism, so it requires 110,000,000 % of my concentration.  (Luckily, I’m not prone to exaggerate, otherwise I’d probably throw some really huge number out there…)

Okay, now, on a more serious note.  I have to very soberly question what’s up with the new Tom Petty album — Wild Flowers & All the Rest. Slavish devotee of Tom Petty’s that I am, he (and Rick Rubin, the producer) had said over the years that there were something like 25 additional songs that were not included on the original album, but that Tom Petty had wanted to release on a follow-up to Wildflowers some day.

And this new album has been touted for many, many months (years?) as that album. However, even while there are 54 (!!) songs on this new album, there are only 6 (!!) songs on this collection that I would consider to be actually new, never-heard-before songs.

There are many songs that are never-before-heard versions of songs we already know — meaning they are his home demos. Or perhaps songs with their original lyrics, that wound up changing when the songs were eventually released on other albums. Or “live” versions of songs, etc.

But there are only 6 songs that I don’t recall ever hearing before, ever.  So where are the other 19 or so “brand new songs”?

I’m wondering if, next October, when we once more commemorate the anniversary of his death, they will be releasing the all-new Oops We Forgot to Include These follow-up to the follow-up of Wildflowers…

I’m not 100% super happy about this, gang.

Anyway.  On we go, right?

Okay, sometime next week, I think I will finally be a guest on one of M. Christian’s podcasts (he co-hosts two podcasts), discussing The Guitar Hero Goes Home, and probably also talking positively about sex-positive topics. I will keep you posted!! I will try hard to speak like a grown-up. We shall see if I succeed or not. (Although I have already told them I will discuss anything except politics and the virus. So I’m not sure if there are any grown-up topics left…)

Regardless, I’m excited!!

Okay, let me get started here, folks. I hope you have a great Saturday underway, wherever you are in the world! I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning. I was once again back to More of The Monkees! This one, another great tune penned by Mike Nesmith, a member of the group, “The Kind of Girl I Could Love”.  I truly love this song, it is so upbeat (well, I love the whole album). Play it loud. And enjoy. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!!

“The Kind Of Girl I Could Love”

Girl, you look mighty good to me
And I know that you’ve got to be
The kind of girl I could love.

You’ve got the sweetest pair of eyes
And your kiss would be paradise
The kind of girl I could love.

You do something to my soul
That no one’s ever done.
If you’re looking for true love
Then let me be the one.

Girl, deep in my soul I’m sure
And my heart has no doubt that you’re
The kind of girl I could love.
The kind of girl I could love.
[Repeat and fade]

© 1967 Michael Nesmith, Roger Atkins

In Honor of World Mental Health Day, I Guess

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My mood is totally tanking around here.

I awoke in a reasonably good mental space. Not 100% sure why it’s tanking — and tanking so rapidly. But I think it has something to do with the  2 chairs I acquired yesterday.

This is not one of the chairs but they look exactly like this:

Antique Ladder Back Chair with Rush Seat | Antique ladder, Ladder back chairs, Chair

I love ladder back chairs, and the 2 that I got yesterday are really old and really well made.

They came from that little house across Basin Street from me. The son was getting rid of what little was left in the house, and I was, like,  “You’re kidding! Two extremely well-made chairs that I love, just for free? Just like that?”

And of course, I was also thinking: What a relief. You can never have enough chairs for the dining room, once you put the leaf in the table. You always need extra chairs.

And I was really just so happy to have these chairs. And I put them in the dining room, against the wall, and I was just really happy. They are so well-made.

And then this morning, it was that thing that happens to me all the time — where I realize that the world in my head has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the life I actually live nowadays. I don’t need more chairs. No one ever comes to visit me. I never have dinner parties anymore. And it has nothing to do with COVID, either.  On those rare times when my birth mom comes here, or my sister comes over, we always sit at the kitchen table. Other than that, no one ever comes over and the other rooms in my house are occupied only by cats. (The cats have not said, yet, whether or not they like the new chairs.)

Anyway, I guess that sort of started me on a little downward spiral. Not so  much the idea that I don’t entertain anymore (or even cook), but the idea that the world in my head is so different from the world I’m actually living in, in the physical.  Even though I know this has been happening to me — I’d even say “increasingly” — since moving into this house, sometimes it really just jolts me. The old life is gone. Even though the life I have now is the one I actually love, the old life is gone and probably isn’t coming back.

It’s just a weird feeling.

I must add here that the latest virus stats were released for this area yesterday, and the county where I do all my marketing had a slight resurgence — 177 active cases (this is still really good compared to where it was at all summer). But here in Muskingum County, we have only 99 active cases, and here in the zip code area where I live (a zip code is an area serviced by one specific post office), we have zero active cases. Yay!! And Muskingum County has still only had 3 deaths from the virus since the outbreak. (This compares to 166,000 currently active cases of the virus in the entire State of Ohio, and a total of 5000 deaths, overall.)

So, you know, this weird world I live in in my head, where everything is just really beautiful all the time, is compounded by the fact that Muskingum County exists in some sort of make-believe place, too.

The whole thing is just really weird.

I don’t suppose there is any real harm, at this point, in living 2 parallel lives that will never meet: the one in my head, and the physical one that I “live.” And I don’t suppose there’s any real harm in the fact that I seem to be regressing way past 12, to about 7 or 8 years old now — judging strictly by my current daily/nightly interests in life (see a post from a few days ago).  (BTW, I am finally remembering to do yoga at night now, but I only do it while I’m streaming reruns of The Monkees.)

The main thing that really sticks out in all this is, of course, my really grown-up car.

In the past few days, I have gotten several very nice compliments about my car. (The molten lava -colored Honda Civic that still looks brand-new but is in fact a year old now. Like me, the car is curiously not aging.) Even though I accept the compliments about my car graciously, it was foisted upon me by the Honda dealership. Plus, I think that St. Christopher (to whom I actively pray whenever I get into any moving vehicle), had some sort of hand in getting me that car because he probably thought it was dangerous enough to have a 12-to-7 year-old girl out driving, she should at least have a safe car (that is sparkly red and goes really fast).

Anyway, it all adds up to me just feeling really crazy;  as if “reality” and “me” do not seem to ever intertwine anymore. And, actually, maybe we never did.

It gets a little depressing.  I’m making sort of a joke about it here on the blog, but I am starting to find it a little alarming in my non-blog life. That said, though, life does indeed go on.

I’m planning to spend the entire day at my desk working on the new erotic short story, “Novitiate.” Try to move that forward because, so far, I’m not making the progress on it that I would like to make.  I still find that I’m battling myself a little bit in how to put this story onto the page. Not so much censoring myself, as trying to determine if where the story keeps wanting to go makes any real sense.  And rather than trusting in the process of the story’s innate knowing of itself, I have decided to become some sort of roadblock to that unfolding.

And I really wish I would stop doing that. I am hoping today will be the Big Day where I can get out of the story’s way.

(I guess that being a roadblock to anything can also be a source of depression.)

So I’m hoping that today will be a day for moving on. If we were to judge it solely by how I’m feeling right now, well — it’s not looking too promising but the day is young!

Okay. Yesterday, Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File that was really moving. You can read it here. And the Nick Cave Instagram site released an announcement that a collaborative album he made with the Belgian composer, Nicholas Lens — titled L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S — will be released in early December, and one piece from it has already dropped: “Litany of the Forsaken.”

(And do yourself an enormous favor, if you go searching for the album on Amazon, remove all those periods between each letter, otherwise you will make yourself fucking insane and never find it.)

Okay!!! On that happy note…

I’m outta here. I hope you have a better Saturday underway, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang!! Today, I leave you with my anthem — okay, maybe not my actual anthem. I don’t think I really have one. But it will probably be played at my funeral, or at the very least, my wake. I’m sort of a “medium” U2 fan. I have several of their albums. But I’m not, like, a huge fan.  But I do love this song — it’s probably my favorite of theirs: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (1987, off The Joshua Tree). So I leave you with that. Enjoy. Lyrics are in the video. I love you guys. See ya.

Okay, I Don’t Know!!

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That idea of switching the blog post to the evenings sure didn’t work out yesterday. Of course, I wasn’t expecting Eddie Van Halen to die and sort of skew my whole evening.

So we’ll just see how it goes.

I do feel really under the gun with the new erotic short story, though (“Novitiate”), although, now I’m not sure exactly what the editors at the publishing house want me to do re: “Half-Moon Bride,” (keep it as a stand-alone story, or include it in the collected stories) so I’m just trying to move forward with the new short story and get it done as quickly as possible. And then see what they decide to do.

Yesterday morning, Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File. It was regarding an emotional stance that a lot of young radicals back in the late 60s and early 70s used to grapple with all the time:  meaning that they were so angry, disenchanted, overwhelmed by feelings of powerlessness in the face of society that they felt it was practically a crime to bring another baby into such an awful world. (And it did turn out, as Nick Cave suggests in his letter, that all those new babies coming into the world helped steer it into new and unexpected directions.)

On a personal note, though, I am one of those women who always, always, always wanted to have babies but wound up not being able to have a family. And whenever I see a young woman on the fence about having a kid or not, I am always really quick to point out to her that time fucking flies and women don’t have the luxury of just waiting indefinitely to decide. That the fertile years are over in a heartbeat. They really are.  Do it while you’re young and in love and have the energy.

Obviously, if a woman doesn’t actually want to have kids, ever, that’s a whole different thing. Don’t EVER have kids if you don’t actually want them. I’m just saying when a young woman is making herself crazy trying to decide — especially if her guy (or mate or significant other or husband) really, really wants to have a kid. Jesus Christ, I always tell her:  DON’T WAIT!!!!!

Plus, I also think it’s sort of egocentric to think that the state of the enormous WORLD is somehow something we’re uniquely responsible for. (If you look at world history throughout all of recorded time, there has never been a time of Utopia. It’s simply not what the world is about. We each live our own unique life within the enormous world.)

Anyway. I thought it was interesting. You can read it here.

Okay, well. Eddie Van Halen. What can I say? When I think of my life in NYC in the 1980s, the most amazing sense of joy and smiles and excitement and insanity and over-the-top fun — that was Eddie, and Van Halen, in general. Jesus Christ, talk about guitar heroes, right?

I realize he was 65 and battling cancer, and had lived a lot of years struggling with substance abuse, etc., but I still think of him as joy-filled “Eddie,” and it is such a shock to think that whole part of life is just gone now.

It’s also something Valerie and I talk about a lot. She and I are both officially in our 60s now — she had a close friend pass away very suddenly, right before her mom did, and her friend was only 61. It’s this feeling that once we start hitting our 60s, so many people decide to check out. They really do.

I get in that frame of mind a lot now — just thinking about what’s ahead of me, and is the best actually behind me now. And all that. And should I start winding things down and check out. (Not as a suicide, I hope, but I do believe on some deep Inner Being level, we make the decision to stay or to go, at any age.)

So, yesterday, is was, like — “On no! Not Eddie, too!” Another intense moment for the month of October…

Well, okay. I want to get some more coffee here and then get to work on “Novitiate.” I hope you have a great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with something fun from Van Halen’s multi-platinum monster album, Women & Children First (1980), “The Cradle Will Rock.” Turn it up and rock on!! I love you guys. See ya.

“And The Cradle Will Rock”

Well, they say it’s kinda frightening how this younger generation swings.
You know, it’s more than just some new sensation.
Well, the kid is into losing sleep and he don’t come home for half the week.
You know, it’s more than just an aggravation.
And the cradle will rock.
Yes, the cradle will rock.
And I say, rock on!
Rock on!

And when some local kid gets down, they try and drum him out of town.
They say, “You could of at least faked it, boy.”
At an early age he hits the street and winds up tied with who he meets, and he’s unemployed.
And the cradle will rock.
Yeah, the cradle will rock.
And I say, rock on!
Rock on!

Have you seen Junior’s grades?
And when some local kid gets down, they try and drum him out of town.
They say, “You could of at least faked it, boy.”
At an early age he hits the street and winds up tied with who he meets, and he’s unemployed.
His folks are overjoyed.
And the cradle will rock.
Yeah, the cradle will rock.
And I say, rock on!
Rock on!
Rock on!
Rock on!

© 1980  Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony

All is Well Here in Crazeysburg!

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Sorry I was not able to get back here to post more yesterday, but I was hard at work on 1954 Powder Blue Pickup for another 12 hours.

However, it is DONE, gang! And I just love it. I really do.

It’s 62 pages, about 35,000 words. I will go over the whole thing a final time today and then send it off to the new publisher tomorrow. And then we shall see.

For me, personally, it’s my most favorite thing that I’ve ever written. And I have written a whole heck of a lot of stuff, gang. But I just love this one.

And as is par for my usual course, it’s a love story with an implied “happily ever after” ending — but before we get to that happy ending, it’s indescribably filthy as hell!! And it’s totally hardcore and pushes every boundary of “questionable consent” imaginable. (As all good love stories should, in my happy opinion! Yay.) Okay.

So, golly, I am exhausted here. But I’m just really, really happy.

I’m going to dash into town to get the groceries here in a minute, and then spend the whole day doing the final edit on the book, because tomorrow, I absolutely must  prune back the hydrangea so that the dead blossoms, etc., can be picked up for yard compost when the truck comes by on Wednesday.

All of my neighbors now have their autumn mums on their porches, and their various pumpkins and decorative fall squashes and even Halloween lights!

And yet I still have all my summer petunias out, and all my happy little summer bird ornaments, and yard angels and summer “Welcome” signs and mosquito-repelling candles, etc., so I have to sort of kind of get with the program somehow — although I’m keeping my petunias until the frost comes and kills them.

Still, I’m going to gather all the various flower boxes onto the kitchen porch, so that at least the rest of the house & barn look like they’re appropriate for fall.

And then I guess we’ll get ever onward to the close of another year.

Well, I have not been able to actually speak to Valerie yet about her mom’s death. It will probably be several days before she’ll be taking any phone calls.  It has just been a really, really rough year for her. Big changes now for her, too. She is the last one left in her family now. Her younger brother died a very long time ago (he used to be my computer guy, back in the Dark Ages), then her dad died a few years back, and now her mom.

I tried to find a photo I have of her and her mom and one of her aunt’s heading off on a trip to Ireland many years ago, but I can’t find it. But they are all super-NYC Irish-Catholic blue-eyed blondes, and they all looked exactly alike. It was sort of uncanny.

Anyway, I feel very sad about that.

Okay, well, while hunting for that photo of Val and her mom, I saw that Nick Cave sent out a new Red Hand File just now. It appears to have something to do with magic, but I have not read it yet. Perhaps we can all follow this link and go over there and read it together!! Yay!!

Other than that, folks, well, I honestly have nothing going on over here. I have just been in another world, trying to get that novella written.  And it looks like I am gonna close this now, scoot into town, and then get right back to work on it so that I can officially say it is done!

I leave you with, like, the very first thing I saw on Instagram, the moment my eyes opened today. So I played it at breakfast. Rather intense breakfast-listening music; I’m not sure what the cats thought of it. (They do tend to prefer Broadway show tunes, frankly.) But it was Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ version of an old Leadbelly song “Black Betty.” As far as I know, it’s only on their B Sides & Rarities album (2005), but was recorded (as a B-side) in 1986.

So I leave you with that, oh, and I guess, in honor of my cats, I’ll also leave you with my hands-down favorite Broadway show tune of all time — “Letters” from the ill-fated Broadway fucking  amazing show, “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.” It was based on a lesser-known Tolstoy novel (just kidding — it was based on War & Peace), and I had tickets to see it in September 2017, when I went to NYC to work with Sandra on our other play. And I was so FUCKING excited to see it but the darn thing CLOSED before I could get there. (It was really, really unfortunate why that show closed, but I won’t go into it here.)

Okay, enjoy and thanks for visiting, gang. Have a terrific Monday, wherever you are in the world! I love you guys. See ya.

Hello Life, Goodbye Yesterday!

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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.)

Brian Jones | Brian jones rolling stones, Rolling stones, Keith richards

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

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…

© 1969 James Yester

Sorry for the Delay!

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I’ve been working on the new short story all day here, gang. Still toying with the idea of pushing it to the length of a novella.  We shall see. For right now, I’m just happy that it keeps wanting to come out.

So. Tom Petty Official released another new single today from the upcoming Wildflowers & All the Rest. (Release date Oct. 16th). This new one is called “Confusion Wheel.” It’s posted below.

The lyrics sort of fit where my life is at these days. For the most part. I guess you can give it a spin and see if you concur!

There is not really much to report on here because, once again, I am  trying to get this new story completed. I’m guessing it’ll be another four or five days.  Until then my life consists of yoga, taking care of the flowers, eating a few times, writing for 8 to 10 hours at a stretch, then collapsing in bed into a deep sleep until about 4am.

Oh, except that yesterday, I had to make a trip into town and guess who was riding right behind me the entire way?? And wearing a helmet??

Yes!! The boy from down the street — on his blue motorcycle. I could not believe it.  And he basically went the speed limit the whole way, which was why he was behind me, I guess. Because god knows I go way more than the speed limit.  (Well, he started out in front me, on the freeway ramp, but I soon pulled way out ahead of him, because I don’t understand what it means to go the speed limit.)

But it was so strange. A relief to see him in that helmet, but strange to see him out on the highway, heading somewhere unknown — miles and miles from Crazeysburg.

And in the car, I was streaming Brian Hyland singing “Sealed With A Kiss” on repeat again (see Monday’s post) and it just made for such a wistful trip to town.  Because both that song and that boy make me really melancholy for days long gone.

Oh, and my lawn care guy showed up yesterday. His back is really in bad shape and he needs surgery. But at least I finally got the grass cut, so I really appreciated that.

Nick Cave sent out a really great Red Hand File yesterday, after I posted to the blog. You can read it here. (He addresses the purpose of an anchor once it has been cut loose from the ship.) For me, it was perfectly timed.

Other than that, life goes on. And I have nothing else to say!! I gotta get back to work here on the story.

I hope Thursday was good for you, wherever you are in the world. the new Tom Petty tune is below. No lyrics are available yet. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

Getting There

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I think the full moon is making my brain a muddled mess today.

I keep puttering around, doing weird stuff.  Sort of sticking to my morning routine, sort of not. I even sat down here to post to the blog, totally forgetting that I hadn’t even done yoga yet, so I came to the unexpected decision that I’m not working out today. Even though I’m wearing my little “do yoga” outfit as I type this.

I also decided that I had to do laundry today — it was suddenly imperative. So I put the dirty clothes in the washer and there was maybe a half an inch of clothes! I sort of stared at it, wondering why I was so hellbent to do laundry, then I went ahead and started the machine anyway.

And even the trash pick-up truck seems to be acting strangely this morning. I’ve seen them drive by my house 3 times already, but they haven’t picked up my trash yet — they’re going on a whole different route. Which is incredibly weird because we have about 6 streets here in Crazeysburg, so why on Earth would you suddenly need a new route, you know? Is it more efficient to drive past people’s houses 3 times?

Not sure what’s going on there. But part of me immediately panics when I see them pass me by, thinking that I forgot to pay the trash pick-up bill again. But they seem to just be driving strangely today.  So before I call them up and lose my fucking mind on the phone, I’ll just wait and see what happens.

Okay, well, yesterday evening, we came SO CLOSE to ordering the test proof for The Guitar Hero Goes Home. The print-preview machine was grinding out the proofing copy over at Amazon, it took forever, but when it was finally finished, the cover art was a fraction of a hair’s breadth too big for the template.

And this was after just a whole big long line of things yesterday that had already exasperated Valerie in trying to get the cover art, within the template specs, to me so that I could upload it. So it was disappointing. But we are almost there, gang.

I already know I don’t like some of the aspects of the layout of the text (well, 2 things), but they are super minor, and the next time around, I know better than to type an entire manuscript into a Beta-testing template. So on we go, right?

And another weird thing — suddenly, this morning, Instagram has started putting people I don’t even know at the top of my feed, putting the posts of people I actually do know, down lower in the feed. Of the 13,704 people I now follow on Instagram, I know maybe 4 of those people, so I would really like to have their posts at the top of my feed, since right now, I don’t have time to hang out scrolling on Instagram; I want to see only my favorite posts at the top of the page and then get off Instagram, because I need every spare moment right now to sit here and quietly lose my mind.

Actually, one of the downsides of letting go of my private Instagram account and making it a public one, is that now I have way too many people that I’m following. And the people I really did enjoy following for such a  long time,  almost never come up in my feed anymore. Yesterday, I saw a post from Benmont Tench and it was the first post of his that I’d seen in, literally, months. And he’s someone who posts all day long. I used to see him first thing in the morning and then last thing at night, and his posts were always funny, charming, etc.  And I really loved his posts. (He was the life-long piano player for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.)

Oh, which reminds me. Today is the anniversary of the death of Conway Savage, who was the piano player for Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds for a really long time. Nick Cave wrote an amusing tribute to him in his Red Hand Files for today. You can read it here.

Okay, well. I’m hoping today will be productive, even though I am clearly in this strangely befuddled mindset. I had wanted to drive into town today to do something very important but now I’m wondering if getting into the car and driving 95 miles an hour today is the best idea. I guess we’ll just find out.

I’m just in one of those weird spaces where life feels intensely unmanageable. I know it will pass…

I’m going to leave you today with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ version of “Stagger Lee”, because for some reason, I always really liked Conway Savage in this video. Well, I like everybody in this video. I just love this video. I’ve posted it here before, of course, but here it is again.  I hope you have a good Wednesday– enjoy that full moon (btw, they just picked up my trash! So if I lose my fucking mind today, it won’t be while I’m on the phone talking to the trash pick-up people). Okay. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.

What Mondays Look Like in My Refrigerator!

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Yes!! It’s Monday!!

Me and Henry, my AI sexbot (pictured above in the driver’s seat!!), will be heading out to do our weekly marketing in the next county over within the hour  — the county that is no longer in Code Red! Yay! The county where we hope people are still wearing their fucking masks so that it doesn’t go back into Code Red again anytime soon!!

The summer is basically over, after all! School starts this week! No need to frolic around joyfully without our masks on, right?? We’re sad now. School is starting. Let’s wear our masks…

Okay! Re: the title of this post — here is what my fridge looks like on Monday mornings:

The taste-tempting options on Monday morning!!

It’s really ridiculous how things look first thing in the morning on Mondays, compared to how it looks a few hours later when I come back home from the store.

(And those packaged broccoli crowns are a week old, so I’m not really sure they’re even any good.)

So, Mondays are always exciting around here, if only that it means we get more food!!

Okay!! Two winners were selected for the Bad Seed TeeVee fan music video contest. (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.) I didn’t see either of the videos!! I wish I had, but there were just tons on there. (And wonderful, wonderful stuff, gang. I hope you got to see some of them.)

Anyway. The winners were: “Waiting for You” performed by Juldiz. And “Spinning Song” performed by Ilya Gruzdev. (Both songs are off of Ghosteen.)

I still just marvel at what people can achieve so economically these days when it comes to music and music videos and/or visual images set to music on a video.

I feel pretty grateful that I even know how to take a 5-second video with my phone.  Even though I have plenty of apps to help me make videos and also to make music, and even though I know how to read and the apps I have are in English, I still can’t figure this stuff out.

And I mentioned this last summer, too — how amazing it is that a lot of people learn how to play (often electronic) instruments on their phones.  For instance, a woman I know bought an inexpensive drum machine recently and learned how to play it through an app on her phone.

In my totally outdated opinion, those aren’t real drums, and to be a drummer, you need to know how to actually play drums. But that is no longer the case. She’s considered somebody who now knows how to play drums. Plain & simple. And every single bit of it is electronic and app-driven.

Well, I think it’s just incredibly cool. I’m on this tangent only because I think it’s amazing how quickly these Nick Cave fans put together such incredible videos. If I had wanted to submit something, I’d still be sitting here, trying to figure out how to work the app. And I’m a classically trained musician, with years and years of experience in audio engineering and multi-media production.

So, the Universe is sort of becoming this place wherein the less you know, the better equipped you actually are.

If you want to read what Nick Cave himself had to say about all the entries as well as the winners, his Red Hand File from today is here.

And on a related note — Cave Things Instagram feed announced today that it is adding more “coming soon” stuff so check that stuff  out here.

Okay, gang. So this is what I’ve decided to do.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I have decided to start self-publishing all my books from now on, and in anticipation of that decision, I will soon have a separate web site for Marilyn’s Room Books.

The books coming either soon or in the very near future are:

  • The Guitar Hero Goes Home
  • The Muse Revisited Vol. 4: Selected Erotic Fiction 1994-2012 (POD)
  • Twilight of the Immortal (POD edition)

And then, coming in a slightly more distant future:

  • Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse
  • Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town
  • In the Shadow of Narcissa: An Intimate Memoir of Childhood

These books will be listed on the new web site but actual orders will be fulfilled by Amazon.

However, I have also decided to start selling new erotic short stories through that Marilyn’s Room Books site, as well. These are stories that I will post for sale as I write them, and they will sell electronically for extremely cheap (and I mean cheap) and the sale will be processed through Lulu.com (Paypal or CC), so I will not have access to any of your private info, gang. And once I accumulate enough new stories, they will be gathered into a new POD collection and the individual electronic stories will be  removed from the site.

I really, really love writing erotic stories, gang. I really do. But the economics of doing that for a living became just crazy once the publishing industry imploded back in like 2010 or whenever that was. At the height of my career, I was paid between $300 -$1200 per story, and each story would be 1000- 3000 words; I could turn those things around in a couple of days. And then I earned ten times that (and upwards) to edit anthologies of stories by other erotica writers. (And this was strictly through the small presses; a fraction of what the large presses paid.)

And this was not erotic romance, either. This was hardcore literary erotica by writers that would really just amaze you.

That market simply does not exist anymore. Not even close. Now, an original erotica story will pay between $5-$30.  And usually they do not come out as an actual print book that you can buy in the bookstore , they’re all eBooks or audio. Which is great, but still, you can readily see why writing stand alone erotic stories got pushed way to my back burner.

Yet, I feel bad that so many of you (those of you still willing to pay for them and not download them free through torrents from game boys in distant lands) keep buying that really old stuff, over and over. So we shall see how it goes: In between (erotic) novels, memoirs, screenplays and plays, there will be new erotic stories for you, and about 50¢ for me!!

I’m actually really excited because I do love writing that stuff, but I also do need to earn a living around here.

I will of course announce any new stories here on the blog, but if you want to be updated about new content, there will be an email sign-up on the other site.

Well, all righty. The grocery store is beckoning me!! So I will get going.  I hope you have a great Monday, wherever you are in the world today!! I leave you with my listening music from last night: Yo Yo Ma playing “Cantata BWV 147, Jesus bleibet meine Freude”. I had it on “repeat” for about an hour. Listen and rejoice!! Okay. I love you guys. See ya!

Another Stunning Day in Crazeysburg!!

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The weather has just been astoundingly great this summer, gang. It truly has.  Hot and sunny during the day, cool at night. Even during the worst of the heatwave, it was always cool by morning.

And today is no different.  Even though the virus still leaves its mark on everything, beautiful weather makes everything more endurable.

Well, in my opinion, it does.

A quick FYI and then I will veer far from the topic of politics: Yesterday,  Kevin Clinesmith was the first to plead guilty to “the Obama FBI’s fraudulent Russiagate operation against Trump. And more guilty pleas are expected to follow.”

There was apparently some sort of massive plea bargain involved in that guilty plea, so I’m guessing he won’t go to prison, but at least people are now being forced to come forward and admit that the whole Russiagate thing was a lie and a waste of time and of taxpayer’s money. Simply because Obama’s administration wanted Hillary to win and they hated Trump.

So. No Russiagate. Big surprise there, right? And oddly enough, even as far back as 2016, even the Russians were saying there was no Russiagate. But the more I tried to blog about that whole thing, the more my computer kept getting hacked, so I had to stop… But there we have it.

(And a long, long, LONG time ago, I used to actually respect Nancy Pelosi. Now I wish she’d just find herself another job. She makes Democrats look like hate-filled maniacs.)

Okay, that was the politics. Now, onward.

Nick Cave sent out another Red Hand File today that was so beautiful.  It’s about a non-verbal teenager in Australia, Tyler Hartfield who suffers from cerebral palsy, and a song he wrote and performed with his band at school. The coverage in Australia and the band performing the song can be found here. (Tyler’s musical inspiration is Nick Cave.) (Also an Australian, in case, for some inexplicable reason, you didn’t know that.)

The song is really good. A real triumph.

Okay. I did indeed speak with Valerie yesterday, and we went over the cover at for The Guitar Hero Goes Home!! Just a couple text-based things need to be added and we will be done and ready to publish it, gang!!

I will still have to get a test print to see how it looks in reality before I can actually let it go to print. But we are indeed almost there. And hopefully the novel will be available for sale in POD and eBook formats by the time I am a guest on those 2 upcoming podcasts, wherein I will be promoting the book! Yay.

Then, next in line for print publication (POD, to be precise), will be The Muse Revisited, Volume 4: The Selected Erotic Fiction of Marilyn Jaye Lewis (aka: Me) 1994-2012.

So we are making progress here with this HUGE stack of stuff on my desk (and down on the floor around my desk).  Plus, I am under the growing suspicion that the current novel I’m working on, Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town, is going to be a very interesting book, gang. The kind of book that no publisher on Earth (except maybe Last Gasp) would ever publish.  So there is just no reason to think I am not just going to publish it myself.

But it is such a liberating feeling — to just write the book the way it seems to be asking to be written without worrying about who on Earth would publish it and/or which bookstore on Earth would agree to sell it. (And I’m not wading into any of the traditional taboo subjects that have given me problems with the FBI and the US Attorney General’s office in the past. So I’m not worried that the book will be against the law in any way, it will just be for certain forewarned audiences.) (i.e.: “Warning: this book is likely to offend you in some way so be forewarned.” That kind of thing. But I just feel that, before I die, there are these things I want to express about humanity and tolerance and decency and joy and sex and love and regret and horror and duplicity and savagery and people who look the other way.)

All righty! On that note, I’m going to get going here. The morning is rapidly disappearing.

I hope you’re enjoying your Thursday, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music form this morning (and truth be told, it followed me clear into yoga this morning, too!).

I’ve posted it here many times, but here it is again, for your listening pleasure!! Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow,” from his massively popular 1971 album, Teaser and the Firecat.

(And tomorrow, I will start posting new videos/songs from the upcoming Tom Petty Wildflowers part 2 box collection. His official web site has started to release the stuff on YouTube today.)

Meanwhile, enjoy “Moonshadow” for the millionth time! Okay. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.

“Moonshadow”

Oh, I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow
Leapin and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow

And if I ever lose my hands, lose my plough, lose my land,
Oh if I ever lose my hands, Oh if… I won’t have to work no more.
And if I ever lose my eyes, if my colours all run dry,
Yes if I ever lose my eyes, Oh if… I won’t have to cry no more.

Yes I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow
Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow

And if I ever lose my legs, I won’t moan, and I won’t beg,
Yes if I ever lose my legs, Oh if… I won’t have to walk no more.
And if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south,
Yes if I ever lose my mouth, Oh if… I won’t have to talk…

Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light.
Did it take long to find me? And are you gonna stay the night?

I’m bein’ followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow
Leapin’ and hoppin’ on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow
Moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow

© 1971 Islam Yusef (Cat Stevens)