Tag Archives: Nick Cave Red Hand Files

A Little Too Industrious For My Taste!

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Wow, gang.  When it was all said and done, yesterday sorta, kinda sucked.

I probably shouldn’t say it like that and should look at the positive stuff instead, but for whatever petulant reason, I don’t feel like doing that right now.

Just as I was getting down to work on the play yesterday, something — I don’t recall now what it was — reminded me that I had to update the Life Story Rights for two (living) people who are characters in Tell My Bones and that I also still needed to send them their additional option money. And if I don’t do this stuff, it doesn’t matter how good the play is, no one will produce it.

Funny how you can sort of happily overlook stuff like that in your creative frenzy of being a writer!

What this means is that I had to stop everything and do a whole lot of fucking typing yesterday. Boring legal typing. Pages of it. So boring that you would rather do anything else imaginable.

I would type about half a page and then have to flop down onto the bed and stare out the window, I was so bored. Or take a nap. Or go take a shower. Or discover a Pinterest page with a whole lot of sexy photos of the (now very) late Tom Petty from when he was about 31 years old and try not to cry.

You know, really important stuff like that.

I didn’t finish typing the darn documents (10 pages) until after 6pm. It dragged out for the whole darn day because I just couldn’t stay focused. It was just so boring. (And every single word has to be correct or it won’t hold up in a court of law, which you hope it won’t come to anyway.)

And then I realized that I am still sort of grieving. Definitely, things are still not 100% right with me, emotionally. And I did that thing again, where I ate half a bag of tortilla chips last night instead of forcing myself to eat a real dinner. I hate when I do that because it just ends up making me feel sick. Even though they’re organic, non-GMO, multi-grain chips, they still have a ton of salt and carbs. That’s the 2nd night this week that I’ve done that, so I think I just won’t bring those chips into the house anymore. (Depriving myself of something I love is always my “fallback” response.)

Normally, I have the most stupidly healthy diet that you can possibly imagine. You wouldn’t even want to imagine it because it would just bore you to tears. (For instance, if I do eat chips, I eat only seven, because it gives me 3 grams of protein and not too many calories. I am that weird — seven chips. I count them out and then that’s what I eat.  Or I allow myself 28 grams of dark chocolate a day — primarily for brain health, although I love dark chocolate. This amounts to 5 tiny squares, that I space throughout the day.  It’s really that insane around here.) But because of that, a half a bag of chips at once is a real assault on me now and it made me feel so sick. For hours.

(And I don’t think of this as being neurotic, per se. And it’s not that I wish to live forever, because I sure don’t. But if I’m going to be even still alive next week, I want to be healthy and look as good as I possibly can. I’m fucking past middle age here. This is about vanity, gang; not neurosis.)

Crap. Anyway.

But grief is so weird, right? It just gets in there and short-circuits your brain. Even while you can see it happening, you just don’t get in there and stop it. It would take too much out of you. (Or out of me, in this instance.)

I wound up going to bed at 9:30pm because I was just so emotionally exhausted. I didn’t want to cry or be depressed; I just wanted to sleep and forget. And I turned out the light and THEN I happened to glance at my phone (ringer off) and noticed a TON of texts! From my friend in Houston, battling the cancer; from my sister, going in for surgery today. From some people I don’t know on Instagram. It was crazy. I was trying so hard to be polite, you know? Reply to the texts, then turn over and try to go to sleep. But I’d turn over and only see that whole corner of the room behind my head  light up with more texts.

Jesus, this went on for over an hour. All these texts. And a couple of the conversations were upsetting me — and I was trying to tell myself not to judge; to be tolerant. To just let people live their own lives and make their own choices.

But then I thought, I better make sure my (birth) mom is okay, so then I texted her. But she of course is more rational and didn’t reply; she was likely having a beer and a cigarette and thinking: fuck if I’m gonna get in the middle of these crazy-texting daughters of mine…

Anyway, I finally fell asleep while in the middle of my friend in Houston sending me photos of meteorites and chondrites that he works on at NASA that have fallen from the sky and are billions of years old… (It was actually cool but I fell asleep anyway.)

So that was me, yesterday. I got a lot done but I went kicking and screaming into doing it. (Oh, except that I am now up to Episode 4 of Ken Burns’ Jazz and it is just a great episode. Each episode is about 2 hours, so it’s taking me awhile.)

One really cool thing that happened yesterday: Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files thing was amazing! He essentially gave a fan in Serbia the clothes off his back!! You can read it here.

Tonight, his Conversations resume in Essen, Germany.  I’m guessing no one can top that theater in Wiesenbad, though. So far, Wiesenbad, Montreal, and (I think) Helsinki (?) had the most beautiful theaters.

Oh, and if you check out the a1000Mistakes blog out of Australia, he has a link to a long but really cool bunch of interviews regarding an upcoming tribute to Rowland S. Howard: Pop Crimes — The Songs of Rowland S. Howard. You can read it here.

Rowland S. Howard_4

Okay, well. The director of the play just texted me from NYC and asked how I was doing with the throughline of the new character arc, so I have to get moving here. Because my reply to his question was probably not as forthcoming as it could have been… So let me get at it here.

I hope Thursday is good to you, gang, wherever you are in the world. We don’t get out of this world alive — as we all know if we read that Jim Morrison bio from about 30 years ago:

NoOneGetsOutOfHereAlive.jpg

However, it still seems like a wanted thing — making the best of being here while we are. So I hope you have a good day. I leave you with more Duke Ellington, just because it makes me feel good. If you’re having an iffy sort of day, give it a spin and it’ll get you on a better track — all puns intended. All righty. I love you guys. Thanks for visiting. See ya.

Just So Intensely Strange — Even for Me!!

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Okay. Well. I’m having a good morning here.  I honestly am.

I slept in until 6am. Awoke happy. The first thing I did was start streaming “Clementine” by Jean Goldkette & His Orchestra, featuring Bix Beiderbecke (1927).

If you don’t know this tune then that’s probably why there’s a big hole in your life (listen now and everything will finally be fine!):

Anyway, I continued streaming it while getting the cats fed and getting my own breakfast together. (And it was quite a surreal tune to listen to while watching 7 feral cats pace about the floor in anticipation of breakfast.) But I finally turned it off while I was actually eating my own breakfast.

But the whole time, I was thinking intensely about Nick Cave. (I want to say again that the theater he had his Conversation in last night, in Wiesenbad, Germany, was just jaw-dropping. All the Instagram posts were so beautiful. There were quite a few more posts by this morning.)

After breakfast, I took my coffee cup and went back upstairs to meditate, like I always do. I set my coffee cup on my night table and suddenly realized that I had a totally different coffee cup from the one I thought I had!

This is really intensely bizarre for someone like me, because I guarantee you my cups and my breakfast bowls always match, and they are always seasonal. For instance, I would never, ever in a million years, use my summer coffee cup with the brightly colored flowers on it in the dead of winter. It’s just never gonna happen. Ever.

But I thought I was drinking out of my red vintage  Kellogg’s mug that I use all during January, when I suddenly realized I was drinking out of this one instead — and  I’d been drinking out of it for nearly an hour already before I noticed it:

I don’t know. You’d think I would sort of notice a skull & cross bones at my breakfast table. Yet, I didn’t.

If you’re new to this blog — like, if this is your first day here — you’ll just think I’m superficially crazy. But I have a thing about dishes. A seriously deep-rooted addiction to them. I’m deeply crazy — it’s not superficial. I would never sit down to breakfast (in my own kitchen) with a cup that didn’t match my bowl.

And this one is my pre-Easter coffee cup. I use this cup and its matching bowl from Mardis Gras up until Easter. (Seriously — and on Easter morning, I change to the pastel yellow set with the single bas relief fleur de lis on it.)

So weird that I reached for this one today, filled it, drank from it, re-filled it, took it upstairs…. without noticing I’d done it. But what’s even sort of weirder, in my opinion, is that it’s the only coffee cup I own that was made in Germany.

I was thinking about Nick Cave in Germany and I picked up that cup! And it was made at Waechtersbach, which is only about an hour from Wiesbaden. Don’t you think that’s so weird?

Well, anyway. I do.

So, what I was thinking about Nick Cave is that these snippets of him singing (on Instagram) — the songs are all slowed down from their normal tempos (as were yesterday’s posts from Baden-Baden). And I keep feeling like he’s sad.

And then I think that I’m just projecting something on to these songs because there’s no way to really know, since the videos are micro-short, and none of the videos are of him talking to the audience.  The photos of him talking to the audience are really lovely, though, even though he’s not smiling in any of them, but then he almost never smiles. (I don’t know, maybe at home he smiles constantly so, by the time he’s out in public, he’s just tired of it.) Although, here’s a photo I love. I don’t remember when this is from, but it’s not that long ago.

Anyway, this wasn’t supposed to be a Nick Cave tribute or anything. I was actually really thinking about the difference between projecting feelings that come from within us, and receiving information that comes from outside of us. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say: receiving information that comes from deeper within us.

Receiving is just way more accurate than projecting, but you really have to tune in to your feelings, or thoughts, and get clarity, you know? Is this feeling coming from me — a sort of reflexive reaction from my brain– or is it coming to me from somewhere deeper?

This is something I think about a lot — ever since I began keeping the Inner Being journals every morning.  It’s been 7 months now that I’ve been doing it — what I call “dialogues” with my Inner Being. Writing them down, right after meditation. Or, if for some reason I don’t meditate (which is rare, but it happens), then I do it right before I sit down at my desk.

I haven’t missed a day dialoguing with my Inner Being in 7 months.

And I am really learning to be wary of coming to conclusions that are based on projecting rather than on receiving. I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with always wanting clarity on everything, but I am. Which was why this thing with the coffee cup this morning just really startled me. I’m usually just so intensely aware of every single fucking moment…

I know! You’re wondering: Gosh, how come she lives alone? She’d be so nice to come home to!!

In fact, I don’t usually even say “hello”. Instead:

ME (seeing you coming up the walk from a long, hard day, then I open the screen door): “You know what I was thinking?” (then I proceed to tell you exactly what I was thinking. All day.)

YOU: (complete silence, as you hope against hope that there’s still beer in the fridge.)

Anyway.

Well, this is something else I’ve been curious about.  I have this sort of pronounced feeling that “all is well” in my life now. And it seems to be coming from this relationship I have with my adoptive dad, which, to put it in the tiniest nutshell you can possibly imagine, has not been easy.  And this morning, I was wondering why I’m feeling that way right now, and I realized that this is the first time, since I was a really young girl, that there hasn’t been a wife between him and me. (This doesn’t include my adoptive mother because he was actually the person who protected me from my adoptive mother.) Even though I loved both of my stepmoms, I really did — they were both really nice to me. It just feels different now that the wives are gone. There’s no longer another person there that, you know, means everything to him. (Even though, obviously, he’s still thinking about my stepmom constantly, and grieving deeply for her.)

But this is a new feeling for me. Almost like I exist again. Something like that.

Okay. I’m now seeing that there’s a new Red Hand Files thingy from Nick Cave in my inbox! I shall go investigate it. And then get on with my day. I’m expecting to get some really good stuff done with the revisions of Tell My Bones today, because I finally got some good insights yesterday.

Have a great Wednesday, wherever it leads you! Feel free to come visit, if you’d like to know every single thing I’ve been thinking about while you were away… (yes, there’s beer in the fridge — leftover from when my birth mom was here). I leave you with what I was listening to last night, while drifting off to sleep. “Black & Tan Fantasie” by Duke Ellington, 1928. An erotic little tune, actually. (Although, probably my favorite Duke Ellington song is “Take the A Train.”) All righty. I love you guys. See ya.

Okay, Home Again

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Well, it did snow for the entire drive back, but so far, it’s not really accumulating. Nothing like what the northern part of the Midwest has gotten.

Anyway, I wanted to post those links from Friday.

The Finest Example posted an excerpt from my new novel Blessed By Light. The excerpt has been posted online before, but in a slightly different version. The excerpt is titled, “The Guitar Hero Goes Home.” You can read it here.

The Finest Example is a brand new online zine out of Wales, and is actively seeking art, stories, poems. So check them out if you want to contribute something.

And also on Friday, Nick Cave posted a new Red Hand Files response. It was mostly about how he and The Bad Seeds feel about their ever-evolving musical sound and how the fans (may or may not) have reacted over the decades.

It was interesting. His usual eloquence and amazing choice of words.

For me, though — wow, I can’t imagine not wanting to evolve with a band or songwriter as they evolve. Assuming they do evolve. If the music stagnates, or perhaps de-vovles, I do lose interest. But, obviously, I never lost interest in Nick Cave — or in Lou Reed, or in Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers — and they changed year after year after year. The Heartbreakers’ last records could not have been more different than how they sounded in the beginning.  For instance, there’s no way to even compare an album like You’re Gonna Get It, from 1978, with Mojo, from 2010, or their last studio album, Hypnotic Eye, from 2014.

(Which also reminds me that Mike Campbell has a new band now (and a new video — and a new album coming soon). He did about 2 years’ of touring as a guitarist with Fleetwood Mac, but now he has his own thing — The Dirty Knobs! They will be on tour this whole upcoming year.)

Okay. I’m gonna, scoot. Gotta pay bills. Collapse. Stuff like that! See ya, gang.

Leaving you with three things:  one of my favorite songs from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ second album, You’re Gonna Get It; they’re perennial hit, “I Need to Know” from 1978.

Probably my favorite off of Mojo, from 2010, although it’s hard to pick an actual favorite. It was an incredible blues/rock album. The song is “Runnin’ Man’s Bible”:

My favorite off of Hypnotic Eye, 2014 — “Full Grown Boy”:

Mini Update

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Naturally I’ve already had to make a rest stop, since I managed to drink 3 cups of coffee before I left. But here in the public toilet stall in the middle of nowhere, I of course checked my email!!

An excerpt from my novel Blessed By Light has gone “live” at that new literary zine out of Wales— The Finest Example.com! It’s a slightly different version of Chapter 18, titled “The Guitar Hero Goes Home.” I see that it already has some “likes” and a nice comment! As soon as I’m not in a public toilet stall, I will post the link to it!!

And I see that Nick Cave has also posted a Red Hand Files thing!! It seems to be about music and Kanye…

This Day Is Almost Sucking

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Grief really sucks, you know? Doesn’t it?

And for me, there’s also a lot of anger in it — in grief.  I hate having to “work shit out”. In my brain, I mean. In my heart. I’d rather just, you know, go along my merry way.

I don’t like to be angry. And I also don’t like to feel crippled by grief. I’m guessing I’m the only person on Earth who feels this way…

Well, very early this morning, even though it is nearly freezing outside, a bird was singing outside my window. I knew it was connected to my stepmom. I just knew it. She was a very intensely spiritual person while she was alive and I’m guessing she hasn’t changed since yesterday, when she died.

I don’t know if she was telling me she was all right, or telling me to get my ass out of bed and stop crying. Maybe a little of both? But I know it was connected to her — that little merrily singing bird in the dead of winter, in the maple tree right outside my window. So I am going to try to make the best out of this day somehow. Then first thing tomorrow, I’m leaving to go be with my dad. Then the funeral is Saturday.

And I will make every effort not to shoot myself, because it would be so intensely inappropriate.

Meanwhile.

Here are a couple things that might be of interest to you.

If you are an American artist of any kind — writer, visual, etc. Please join the Copyright Alliance. It is free to join. Copyrights are once again coming under attack in the USA and you need to stay informed about what is at stake for the copyrights of your work in the age of the Internet. Join here. It takes 2 minutes.

On Instagram this morning, Stefanos Rokos announced that his art exhibition in Antwerp has been extended by popular demand. It will run again from January 22 -February 9th. These are the incredible paintings inspired by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ No More Shall We Part album. If you live in Belgium or will be traveling there, the details of the gallery and the exhibit are here.

Which reminds me, that it is now almost two weeks since there was a Red Hand Files thingy from Nick Cave!! (Perhaps the bird outside my window today was telling me to find a reason to go on living anyway. I guess we’ll see.)

All right. I need to go. I’m not sure my writing will yield anything productive today. I’m not sure if I’m going to even try. Yesterday was all about sitting at the kitchen table and staring; calling my dad every few hours to make sure he wasn’t falling to pieces — although he was.

I have no clue what today will be about.  I’m so angry and I’m just so fucking sad.  I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with life, you know. But I’m guessing that will change. Everything always does.

Have a good day, wherever you are. I love you guys.

Best Day Ever!

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Well, work with Peitor on the micro-script yesterday was so fun. Plus, it was just one of those sessions where we got so much accomplished — even though, you know, we are still nowhere near done.

Yes! An 8 minute film. And we’ve been working on it for a year now. And still nowhere near done with the script (because we’re going shot by shot).

I still don’t know why Peitor was in Dallas yesterday. From the background sounds, he was clearly in a hotel room with Graham. I could hear the television and I could hear room service arrive with Graham’s breakfast. But when I said to Peitor, “I can’t remember why you’re in Dallas right now.” He replied, “I can’t remember either!”

Then he just laughed it off and said, “I just want you to know, Marilyn, how much I love working on this script with you. It always feels like we’re kids, having a sleepover, you know? The parents are sound asleep in their rooms, but we’re still up,  in bed with a little flashlight, creating our make-believe world.”

I’m not sure if that’s what my immaturity brings to the table, or if he and I share equally in that, but I thought it was kind of telling. You know, me still being 12 and all that. I think it’s rubbing off on him. (I’m 59 and he’s 62.)

Well, I discovered yesterday that he’s been actively pitching the logline for Lita’s Got to Go to people he meets, or knows, in LA and in London, so I guess it’s okay to post it here. I’m actually the one who was supposed to create the official website months ago (for Abstract Absurdity Productions), but it was back when I was putting up what I thought was going to be a simple, one-page blog for In the Shadow of Narcissa, and that wound up being a little task from Hell. So after that, I took a break. Because the site for Abstract Absurdity has to be a little more complex than a one-page blog…

And now here it is, months later, and I still haven’t done it. Anyway. Here is the current logline:

“Lita’s Got to Go is a short abstract absurd comedy in 7 acts about a psychologically unstable woman who becomes obsessed when she senses her housekeeper has been inappropriate with her furniture.”

And it is heavily informed by Polanski, Antonioni, Hitchcock, and Bergman, and the Bauhaus school. And it is possibly going to be in Swedish with English subtitles, although we keep vacillating on that. (Regardless, there are only about 5 lines of dialogue, total.)

So yesterday was good!

Although Nick Cave went a whole week without sending out a Red Hand Files letter. I hope it’s not connected to the catastrophic fires going on in Australia. (Perhaps maybe he simply stumbled upon a latent inner ability to take a vacation? The In Conversations resume in Europe in about a week, and then there’s the Ghosteen tour of Europe coming up, which I’m guessing will sort of expand into South America and Central America and North America and well, Australia — one would hope. )

Anyway, here’s something I found truly remarkable yesterday: A huge lit billboard along the main highway here – yes, out here in the middle of rural-nowhere Muskingum County, Ohio — asking people to donate to help Australia. Plus, it was worded in such a way that you could easily see where to make your donations, even if you were zipping past at 95 mph, as I usually am!

I think a genius designed that billboard.

[GENIUS (speaking in the boardroom): “Twelve-year-old girls will likely be driving past this billboard really fast, so let’s make sure the URL is easy to see and to remember!”]

Well, okay, it’s Saturday morning. Quite mild here. A little bit of sun making it’s way into the sky.  Looks like a pretty day. I’m gonna get to work here on rewriting that character arc in Tell My Bones.

(Oh, wait — let me give you a head’s up about a fellow blogger, Peter Wyn Mosey, a writer from Wales, who has a new webzine launching today: The Finest Example. Stories, art, & poems. Visit, follow, & submit work!! I’m going to!)

Okay, as much as I hesitate to do this too often, lest you start to think I’m living in some sort of time warp here, I’m leaving you with my breakfast listening music from today, which was once again Rudy Vallee — but a different song from the previous days. This one was truly a smash hit. It’s super catchy, too. “You Oughta Be In Pictures” from 1934. I love this song.

It occurred to me during breakfast, that this was the first time I was listening to the song in a really old house — you know, that would have likely had a radio back in 1934 that probably actually broadcasted this song! It was interesting to think about that. The life of radio waves, sound waves, space & time.

All righty, well, thanks for visiting!! Enjoy your Saturday, wherever you are in the world! I love you guys. See ya.

(And here’s another site, this one in LA, with a detailed list of links on how to help firefighters, the Red cross, and wildlife in Australia.)

“You Oughta Be In Pictures”

(Rudy Vallee’s extended version)

As I look at you
A thought goes through my mind
What a marvelous find
You’d make upon the screen
I am proud that I have you
Right by my side
But I’d be satisfied to share you
With the public to be seen

You ought to be in pictures
You’re wonderful to see
You ought to be in pictures
Oh, what a hit you would be
Your voice would thrill a nation
Your face would be adored
You’d make a great sensation
With wealth and fame – your reward

And if you should kiss the way you kiss
When we are all alone
You’d make ev’ry girl and man a fan
Worshiping at your throne

You ought to shine as brightly
As Jupiter and Mars
You ought to be in pictures
My star of stars

You’re lovely as a Crawford
Like Davies you are gay
You surely should be offered
A starring part right away

You’re sweet as a Gaynor
And you’re as hot as the gal named West
You’d surely make even Garbo jealous
If you took a movie test

You ought to dress like Tashman
And ride in motor cars
You ought to be in pictures
My star of stars

c – 1934 DANA SUESSE, EDWARD HEYMAN,  & RUDY VALLEE

Don’t Puke — It’s Art!

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Jesus Christ — what a fucking day.

I have spent the entire day at my desk, working on In the Shadow of Narcissa (the memoir about my early childhood). Or trying to.

Primarily, I was just going to reformat it today from web pages into a traditional manuscript format, but then I realized that I need to re-write the opening segment somehow, because it sounds more like a prologue right now. I’m not sure if I want to keep it as a prologue. Ideally, I want it to have the present-tense approach that the other segments have except that the first segment happens when I am only about 18 months old. And even though I remember when it happened, I’m not sure how to write from the POV of myself at 18 months old.

When I gave it a try, though, I discovered that putting myself directly into that headspace of myself at 18 months (the first time my adoptive mother physically abused me) really upset me and I spent several hours after that just wanting to throw up.  And wondering why the fuck am I writing this damn thing? Why revisit all this? But also feeling like it’s my life and all I really know how to do is create from my life. And for whatever reason, I feel it’s really necessary for me to write this little book.

My childhood — it had moments that were so beautiful. And they were the last beautiful moments I had until I got well into my 50s. Which, of course, sucks. So I want to write this darn book. Process the whole darn thing. But it also kept making me feel like vomiting.

And I also realized today that Thug Luckless is me, as well — in the sense that he’s this robot on the outside that becomes this deeply sentient thing on the inside, through sexual contact with a whole fucked-up town, whether he wants it or not. You know — I saw weird parallels with my own life. I’m okay with that, though, because he’s a character.  So I can “act out” through him. Whereas the Narcissa book is a memoir. It’s me. When I first began writing it this past summer, it didn’t bother me like this. And it’s really just this opening segment that is upsetting me so much today.

As the sun was going down, even though — or maybe because — it was getting pretty chilly out, I decided to take a walk. Just get air, you know? To stop this desire to vomit.

And, my god, I love this town out here in the middle of nowhere. First off, I headed directly across the street from my house and then stopped in the middle of the train tracks. I looked west and saw the sun going down in the distance, over those tracks that just go on and on through the rest of the entire state. It was so fucking beautiful. All the old houses in stark outline along the tracks. And the trees. The clear sky with those streaks of amber and orange, sinking way down.  And the tracks receding forever into it. A couple stars coming out. Amazing. I wished I’d brought my phone to take a picture.

And then everywhere I looked as I walked, I was just struck by the age of this town and how stunning it looked at that specific hour of twilight. Everything so darn quiet. Such old houses. Such unexpected architecture. And the sidewalk is so close to the houses that you can  look right into them. (A lot of the sidewalks are still the old brick ones from well over a hundred years ago.) I also noticed tonight that a lot of people here have dogs.

In one house, the front room light was on, the curtains were open. I saw an old man sitting at his dining table, writing something. He had tons of books everywhere.  And two boxers were right there in the window, staring at me! They startled me, because I saw the man in the background first, before I saw the two dogs. You know how they get so tense when they stare at you. And suddenly, there they were. I just love boxers.

So many dogs, watching me along the way. Too cute.

And then I turned back onto Basin Street, heading in the direction of my house, and I suddenly realized — wow, there it is. On the corner. Lights on down in my kitchen, lights on up in my bedroom. My home, you know? I finally have a home — and peace from that mercilessly mean woman who raised me.

Somehow, I am going to write this book. For heaven’s sake, it’s only going to be about 40 pages… and it deals with her in what I consider her “best ” years. I’ve got to figure out how to deal with this.

Well, when I went back inside, I sat at the kitchen table and read a new issue of Mojo that came in the mail yesterday. And watched a couple more of those old episodes of Black Books and laughed really hard. And also saw that I can stream Rocketman and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood now– two movies that I really wanted to see. So that made me happy.

Then I went back up to my room, to my desk, trying to figure out how to approach that first prologue/segment of In the Shadow of Narcissa without losing my mind, and right then, as I sat down, a little ladybug was scurrying across a photo of Nick Cave that’s sitting on my desk.

The little beetle was just there, walking across his face. And of course, it instantly reminded me of one of his Red Hand Files letters from the summertime, when he wrote about ladybugs in connection to his dead son, Arthur, and how believing in something (in signs) helps us survive.

So, I took it as a sign, you know? I tried to take a picture of it before it walked off and went down the side of my desk:

The ladybug is there on the left, getting ready to walk off of the picture.

So that’s been my day. Illuminating, I guess. I’ll try to deal with the memoir again tomorrow, before I go off to meet with the director and focus on Tell My Bones.

And now, I’m gonna go crash on the bed, turn down the lights and stream something.

I hope Tuesday was good for you, gang, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. See ya.

Part of Basin Street, during a full moon this past September.

Off We Go, Back To Work!

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It isn’t actually snowing here today — as the little picture above would imply. It’s raining. And is going to rain nonstop until tomorrow, when it will turn to snow. So it’s kind of an appropriate picture.

I cannot tarry here today because Peitor got back to Los Angeles on Monday and is expecting to get back to work this morning on our micro-script — often titled “Lita’s Got To Go” but sometimes it’s called other things! (I prefer it’s Swedish subtitle: Lita måste gå.)

Anyway. I have to get back in the mindspace for that intensely well-crafted absurdity, so I can’t spend too long on the blog today.

Oh, before I forget, there’s a new Nick Cave Red Hand Files letter out today. It’s very, very interesting, about the song “Hollywood” from the album Ghosteen. I love that song.  (I know, I know, I know — someday I’ll try to dig up a Nick Cave song that I hate, just to prove to you how fair and impartial I can be!! Meanwhile, as pigs fly…)

Anyway. You can read it at the Red Hand Files link up there if you so choose!!

I spent yesterday streaming more of those old Black Books TV episodes on Amazon. That show just really makes me laugh. I know it’s politically incorrect to laugh at drunks anymore but I just find it so stupidly funny. I really just do. I laugh out loud.

And I also did this:

Yes, I did indeed start yet a third journal and clipped a pen to it and carried it around. Meaning, down to the kitchen, back up to my desk, over to the night table.

It does sort of seem, on the face of it, to be kind of ridiculous to have all these separate journals for all the many things that go on in mind that need constant processing. Why not put it all in just one book and not isolate everything like this?

Frankly, I’m not sure. But for now, this is how it is. And I’m hoping it will just stop here, you know? (Oh, and I do want to mention that I am well aware that my little bedside lamp there is intensely un-chic and is well over 60 years old… I, personally, have only owned it since 2004, when Mikey Rivera found it at a garage sale somewhere in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and brought it home to me. I fell instantly in love with it. That’s some kid’s childhood embodied there in that lamp! How can I part with it?? Plus that little green glass part of it is its own separate night light!! It’s just too cool, even though I’m not exactly into the sailboat motif anywhere else in the house, or in my life…) (As if I have a motif in my house other than “old.”)

(And that coaster there on my night table is of a pub in London. I bought the set of coasters at the Heathrow airport about 20 years ago, and it has different illustrations of famous old pubs in London. I also have a set of coasters illustrating popular tourist spots in Paris — the Moulin Rouge one sits on my desk. For some reason, I love coasters bought in airports. And a friend of mine who lives here in the US but who is British,  took a vacation several years ago in Switzerland and, without knowing my slavish devotion to coasters bought in foreign airports, brought me back a set of coasters of pastoral spots in Switzerland. She said, as she sheepishly gave them to me, “I’m not sure why I bought you these weird things, I just saw them and suddenly felt compelled to get them for you…” I was thrilled!!)

So I still have all the Christmas stuff hanging out in the dining room. I just haven’t felt like dragging all those boxes out of storage yet. It felt really nice to just kind of lounge around and read magazines and talk on the phone and stream old TV shows that I’d never seen before… Kind of a little paradise around here for a couple of days.

But I am indeed back to work today because Peitor insisted on it. (I know: first, he insists on dashing off to London for 2 weeks; now he insists on dashing back to work. And my job, I guess, is to just be flexible and let people be whoever they need to be in this life…)

And even though I’ve already seen him a couple times during the holidays, I have an official meeting with the director of Tell My Bones on Tuesday. I actually can’t wait. It’s going to be a good meeting, I know. Even though I still have to do some revisions on the play. (He’s actually asked me to wait until the first table read in NYC because he thinks it will be more instructive for me that way, so I haven’t felt too pressured to do any more rewrites on it just yet.)

Plus, I just love having meetings with people who have vision, who have great ideas. And he does. Plus I love knowing that I am only responsible for writing the play. I don’t have to execute any of his ideas — just write the play. He is always saying to me: “Marilyn, that’s not your job; that’s my job. Just write and let me do my job, okay?”

Okay!

It’s so cool to have a project and not have to be overseeing absolutely everything. I guess this is part of my 2020 horoscope, where it said that this year I was going to learn how to be interdependent.

So, on that note, I need to scoot because I have to get myself sorted here at the desk before Peitor calls. And, of course, get more coffee. (BTW, I drink really, really weak old-fashioned coffee, because I can’t handle very much caffeine at all. I just love the process of constantly drinking coffee but I do like at least a little caffeine. So when I’m saying that I’m always drinking all this coffee, I’m not actually wired to the rafters or anything. I can barely feel it. )

But that said, I’m gonna get more coffee and get going around here. Thanks for visiting, gang! I haven’t actually been playing much music around here, except Sting and old Nick Cave songs that I’ve already posted here recently. Although, I do really love this other song, that I played yesterday while making my lunch, so I’ll leave you with that. You probably already know it because it’s a monster hit that’s already a year old, so I won’t post the lyrics, which are exceptionally lengthy. It’s a really cool song, though — “a lot” by 21 Savage featuring J. Cole.

All righty! Have a terrific first Friday of 2020!!I love you guys. See ya.

Best Morning of Christmas Eve, Ever!

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For some reason, all day yesterday, I kept thinking about that concert film from 2018, Distant Sky: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen. I really wished I could re-watch it. I kept thinking about how great it would sound on my new speakers, plus I just really loved that concert and wanted to see it again.

You know, I have a private email address that only about 6 people know. Two of my friends have it; one of my ex-husbands has it (the other ex-husband only texts me on my phone); and then about 3 business-related people have it. It’s so that I can be sure that emails coming from any of those people never wind up in the junk folder, and never get lost among a ton of spam emails. I won’t ever accidentally delete it, or not see that it’s there the moment it arrives.

There’s only ever about 3 active things in that inbox, and right now they’re all emails from the director of my play. Around 2:30am, though, I saw that my ex-husband (in Seattle) had emailed me. It was no less than 8 animated Christmas gifs, the one posted above being among them! I find it so funny & sweet that he does that, because he’s Chinese, Buddhist, born & raised in Singapore — and he sends me the most Westernized depictions of Christmas imaginable.  It’s so funny. But he also said something really sweet to me and it was just the best little Christmas email to get at 2:30am.

And then at about 6am this morning, I was still in bed and checked that email inbox again and, lo & behold, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds had written to me!! They never write to me at that email address — they only use my main one that the whole world knows!!

Well, upon closer inspection, it turns out that YouTube has that email address  — and they were the ones actually writing to me. But it was to tell me that Distant Sky: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen had just been uploaded to YouTube!! And that I could start watching it right that very second if I wanted to!

Fucking-A, right??!! Yay. I seriously really was thinking about that movie all day yesterday. I’m so happy!

I know… I’m committed to making this effort to watch only new things. (You’ll notice, though, that being “committed to making an effort” has a glaring loophole in it — you can see it a mile away.) Plus, it’s Christmas — who watches anything new on Christmas? I think it’ll be cool if I can manage to get through the next 2 days without watching It’s A Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol or The Bishop’s Wife or Holiday Inn, or even some sort of old foreign film about Nazis in Paris at Christmas or something like that.

We’ll see how it goes. I am, though, going to SERIOUSLY make an effort to not sit at my desk. I am going to try to avoid the hypnotic pull of it. I really am.

Even though, last evening at the Granville Inn, I ran into Kevin — the director of my play — and his husband, Christopher. And so now all I want to do is work on some revisions of the play! But last night, Kevin — who greeted me with this amazing hug and a big smile and said really joyously, “I love you!” and it left me a little breathless because it’s been quite a while since anyone has done that to me — but he also said, “We’re not discussing work until after the holiday, okay?!”

And I said, “Okay!!” And I’m gonna try to stick to that. I really am. And if that means I’m forced to re-watch Distant Sky: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Live in Copenhagen in order to not sit down at my desk, well, you know….

I’m actually so glad that I looked really nice last evening. I was hoping to run into that older man — that widower who’s a transplanted New Yorker — because he’s really interested in my play and I wanted to give him one of the Christmas cards. He’s been really sick, but I was wondering if maybe he was feeling better and would stop in at the Inn before Christmas. So I had actually washed my hair and it was behaving splendidly — you know, silky and bouncy and just really full and not as if half of it had just fallen out in the shower and was hanging around the bathtub drain…(such is the life of hair at age 59 and a half). Plus, I had decided to wear make-up– eye make-up, that is. I never wear any other make-up anymore, even though I have a ton of it and I love make-up; I just hate wearing it now because it adds about 20 years to my face. And I spend 17 trillion dollars a year on products that ensure I look 15 years younger than I am when I roll out of bed each morning and so that I can go out bravely into the Hinterlands and have much younger people gush breathlessly that I don’t look anywhere near as old as I am!

I don’t want to ruin all that by wearing anything more than eye make-up.

But anyway. Last night, there I was, actually looking really good for a change. And I had on these cute little silver earrings shaped like cats in Santa hats with tiny bells on them (a gift from Kara last Christmas) and my little gold “Joy” pin with the tiny rhinestones. I just looked really tastefully festive and sort of “grown-up-ish.” In short: I looked nothing like how I usually look and then I ran into my director and his husband! So I thought privately to myself: oh, yay! they’ll think I look like this all the time…

All righty. Enough of that.

Nick Cave was either up really late or up very early, because I also got a Red Hand Files thingy in my (other) inbox just before dawn! I only know it’s about Christmas. I haven’t read it yet. But you can read it here if you so choose!

Right now, I’m gonna get more coffee, finish up the laundry, brush my teeth, admire my still-behaving hair in the mirror, and then get in my grown-up car and join the throngs of people who, comme moi, decided to save all their grocery shopping for Christmas Eve day — the worst traffic day of the whole year, even in a small town.

Then I will come home, not smoke Chesterfields, not drink bourbon, not sit at my desk and write… but still have a really great Christmas Eve!!

Okay. I leave you with this. It still breaks my heart to pieces (I loved this man and they killed him). But there’s still a lot of joy left there, too, gang. Death doesn’t kill love, it only transforms it. So play it loud and rejoice. And thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

Just A Truly Weird Morning So Far…

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Well, I’ve been physically awake since 4:30am, and I’m feeling good, you know — happy, whatever. But my brain has decided to go in slow motion, or something. I’m not sure what’s going on with me.

All morning, I have tried to post to this blog and complete sentences have been very slow in arriving. So this will probably be a short post. And maybe if the brain returns, I will post more later on this evening.

Late last night, I got a sudden text from Peitor. He was in an airplane at LAX, getting ready to take off for London. He even sent a photo from inside the plane (it actually looked pretty cool — sort of purplish lighting.) Anyway. Loyal readers of this lofty blog perhaps recall that Peitor has a habit of suddenly taking off for Europe. Usually London. And usually it means he’s in some sort of a frame of mind. That’s all I can really say about it on the blog, though, because it’s personal to him. But I was thinking, well, okay — will we be working on the script while you’re gone? I mean, this darn script is already taking us forever as it is, and we were supposed to work on it again tomorrow…

Well, I guess we’ll just see. He hasn’t texted again, so I still have no idea why he suddenly took off for London.

I know he was waiting to hear about scoring a film by a director that I absolutely love, who’s based in England. So maybe it was that. I just don’t know yet. But it threw me that not only was he suddenly leaving, but he was already on the plane.

Another friend was acting extremely strange yesterday, too. And since I have so few friends left (btw, I noticed that a ton of you didn’t show up the other day when I was holding open interviews here in Crazeysburg for new friends…). But seriously, I have so few people in my life right now, that when even two of them start acting unpredictably on the same day, it means that 75% of my friends are acting strange at the same time.

Well, anyway. Laundry here is almost done and then I’m heading into town to get the food. My birth mom actually left some deliciously tasty looking yummies in my freezer! Vegetarian lasagna and some sort of spinach phyllo something or other and pumpkin-sage ravioli.  But I’m out of things like fruit and vegetables and my coveted organic Greek yogurt, so I still have to drive into town today.

Here’s hoping that my inability to form coherent sentences has little impact on my ability to drive.

And then I’m going to either work on Thug Luckless or work on notes for the new “letter” for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. Perhaps even a little of both, if the brain begins working by then. (I honestly don’t know what’s the matter with me. If you could see the amount of typos I keep having to fix just in this short post, you’d be aghast!)

I have to mention here (again) just how much I love the new speakers I bought for the iPad. They are hard wired speakers — you know, that you plug into the wall. My last speakers lasted 10 years and decided to bite the dust while my mom was here and we were watching The Polar Express. I had to switch them out for the bluetooth speaker, which is cheap and has a short battery life. But these new speakers — wow. I was listening to Ghosteen this morning and just could not believe the sound quality. Jaw-dropping. And I only spent 20 bucks on them! (Plus, they’re made by the same company that made the old — more expensive — speakers. Incredible what 10 years can achieve.)

Oh, and right after I posted to the blog yesterday, Nick Cave sent out another Red Hand Files reply letter thing.  You can read it here. It was mostly about that song “Deanna.” I thought it was very, very interesting. I read it several times, actually. (But, of course that’s me and I’m a bit obsessive…)

So, okay. I’m gonna scoot and get the laundry done and get to town and back so that I can sit right back down here at my desk and hopefully begin thinking straight. I have high hopes, but we’ll see!!

Thanks for visiting. I’m sure I will return! I love you guys. See ya!

(Me, in relation to my head right now…)