Tag Archives: Nick Cave Red Hand Files

Man, I Love That Barn

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I had to re-pot one of my plants this afternoon, so that meant I had to brave the truckloads of Virginia Creeper and go get some potting soil out of my barn.

And just opening the door and being inside of it, wow — one of these days, when I’m not writing 4 projects at once, I’m going to focus on fixing up that awesome barn. The energy inside of it is just too cool; it is so old.

The original owner of this house, built that barn himself, over 100 years ago and, structurally, it is still in amazing shape. It needs paint, the roof of course needs fixing, and there’s some old stuff that has accumulated inside there that some day I want to go through (old doors, window frames, old screens — cool stuff like that. Some of it clearly dating back to the 1940s.).

I just love walking inside it. It’s so peaceful in there. I still sense the horse that lived in there, you know. I really do.

Plus, Kevin’s 1965 VW camper van is still in there! Good thing. Because he should be coming back from Montana before the month is out and will probably want to come get it. It’s been parked in there since May and every once in a while, it dawns on me to go and at least look through the window and make sure it’s still in there…

The other day it occurred to me that I forgot to tell my mom that Kevin’s van was parked out there. I’m guessing that if she went exploring the barn (and who wouldn’t? it’s such a cool little barn) she probably wondered why the heck I had an enormous 1965 VW camper van in mint condition parked in there. But at this point, I’m guessing that she probably wonders a whole lot of things about me. (I miss her so much. I hope she comes back before Christmas.)

Well, my phone chat with Peitor was wonderful. Gosh it felt so good to talk to him again. We’re back on track with Abstract Absurdity Productions, starting this coming Friday morning. Mostly, we talked about personal stuff, but what little time we did talk about our script notes just brought back to mind all the insane work we’ve done on this stuff already. Just indescribably absurd stories. So wonderful. I can’t wait until we actually start filming them. And the jewel in the crown, as far as the importance of the scripts goes, is still 3 projects out. I cannot wait until we are ready to tackle that one. We were in Mel’s Diner on Sunset Blvd. on a Sunday evening when we were first fleshing that one out. Peitor had me laughing so hard, I literally almost fell out of the booth.

Outside of Mel’s, back in December

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even though the scripts are meant to be funny, the humor is intensely dark and the stories have complex emotional undertones. And the character in that particular script is named Marilyn — she is absolutely nothing like me, and the story is historically based, and takes place in 1969, so it literally is not me. But every time Peitor would refer to Marilyn doing or saying something really absurd, it just, of course, made me laugh so hard.

Anyway. A really good day here today. The palm tree is inside and sitting in the front window and so far, nary a cat has ventured past the precarious pile of books surrounding it. Not yet, anyway. I’m really hoping that if they do try to get at the tree, a pile of books clattering down on to them will keep them scared away from it until Spring.

Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand Files newsletter today that was awesome. And I’m not just saying that because I love everything he does. It’s one of those ones when his ability to express himself just blows your hair back, you know? Jesus. It was just so well stated. You can read it at that link up there.

Okay. I’m going to let Thug Luckless out of the box for a few hours and see what kind of progress we can make with him tonight. Have a wonderful evening, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

Hmmm. What Fucking Planet is She On…

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Yeah, well, I guess it would have been nice to have been alerted that a little PR blast about “me, the playwright” was going out yesterday. I probably wouldn’t have chosen yesterday to blog about being suicidal and going off to a convent…

Crap. You know?

This is why blogging is always so dicey for me. I actually blog about not only my real life, but also the constant insanity that is really in my head. And as pretty as I am on the outside, well you know, the Portrait of Dorian Gray is often in full bloom on the inside.

So there we have it. My experience of yesterday. All kinds of new traffic coming in through my (outdated, inaccurate) Wikipedia page because of a new crop of strangers googling me; and then finding out about all the joys of being moi.

Okay. We’re just going to move on. But I’m also going to bring this up again, as I so often do around here: When you’re a woman and you’re a writer, nothing will likely speak more to the heart of you than Virginia Woolfe’s A Room of One’s Own. If for some inexcusable reason, you don’t know the book; her overall premise:

“In referencing the tale of a woman who rejected motherhood and lived outside marriage, a woman about to be hanged, the narrator identifies women writers such as herself as outsiders who exist in a potentially dangerous space.”

And once having read it, nothing will feel so horrific as knowing that, even while Virginia Woolfe understood all of it,  she ultimately walked off to the river with rocks in her pocket. She should not have ended that way. I am not going to end that way, I just refuse; even if sometimes the only thing that will help me is taking cover amid a bunch of Carmelite nuns — women who also reject motherhood and live outside marriage but inside the auspices of the Patriarchy. (Wouldn’t that be cool? To just go off and let some guy take care of you? Jesus Christ, right? And no pun intended there… But the minute you let some guy take care of you, he gets to tell you what to do. And loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I will always, without fail, say “NO!” even before I hear what the guy is even trying to say!!! AAAAAaaaarrrrgh!!!!)

But, Jesus. Come on. Even in a First World country, in the 21st Century, it is fucking hard to be a woman, be a writer, and live on a single, wildly fluctuating income — and afford a room of your own that’s quiet so that you can focus and write.

The pressure in my life sometimes feels insurmountable. I am someone who pulls miracle after miracle after miracle out of her hat. But it gets not only exhausting but also daunting: looking into that hat and wondering if another miracle is gonna manage to come out of there one more time.

And in this instance, unfortunately, I am talking about a situation involving other, private people that I cannot blog about. But it’s making me feel undermined and sniped at. And it hurts.

So — on to more beautiful things.

Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand Files newsletter yesterday that was just beautiful.  You can read it here. You know, is it wrong & selfish  to say that it’s too bad men like him (meaning, “rock stars”) weren’t around when I was growing up in the 1970s, or do you just feel appreciative that he’s alive right now?

Oh, and also, during one of Nick Cave’s Conversations in Austin the other night, a woman was sitting next to him on his piano bench while he sang “Shivers.” I ask you, just what kind of hat do you have to have in order to pull that kind of miracle out of it???!!! I thought my Miracle Hat was pretty cool but au contraire! It pales in comparison.

(The people in Austin eventually put a whole bunch of cool stuff on Instagram.) (I believe he’s going to be in Portland tonight. We’ll see what kinds of magical hats the people possess in Portland…)

Well, this week, when I’m not gently tearing my hair out over rewrites of Tell My Bones, I intend to write another short segment of In the Shadow of Narcissa. It’s a difficult one because it goes deeper into the abuse my brother suffered at the hands of our adoptive mother when he was just a little boy.  And to write it from the perspective of a 4-year-old girl. And not through the lens of my own fear of our mother, but from that desperate feeling of wanting to help my brother but being given the constant mandate from her that I was not allowed to care about what happened to him.

Not being permitted to feel things was probably the hardest part of living with her.

The fucked-up-ness was simply manifold.

But I’m also going to take a look at the 4th segment of Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. It’s going to be that “Litany” segment. It should just be very interesting. I’m very eager to write that because I can’t imagine how it’s going to hit the page.

Meanwhile, I’m going to get laundry started here. And at some point, I have to go back into town and buy groceries. I’m gonna wait until the fog lifts, though.  We’ve had an amazingly dense fog here since late last evening.

The fog as seen from my kitchen window just now. The same Carl Sandburg fog that “crept in on little cat feet.” Oh no!! Not more cats!!

Okay, gang. I’m gonna scoot.

Have a terrific Tuesday wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I leave you with two options, both equally from my own perception of life. The first is one I really enjoy believing in. I really, honestly do. Someday, I’ll meet my soulmate and we’ll go off to the Chapel of Love.

The second is more like how I experience love, for real. You know, intensely deeply, but no chapel anywhere on the horizon. (This song was actually playing on the record player when I lost — or got rid of — my virginity. Go figure. The gods are funny, for sure.)

All righty. I love you guys. See ya.

“Piece of My Heart”
Oh, come on, come on, come on, come on!
Didn’t I make you feel like you were the only man -yeah!
Didn’t I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can?
Honey, you know I did!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I’ve had enough,
But I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough.
I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby,
You know you got it if it makes you feel good,
Oh, yes indeed.
You’re out on the streets looking good,
And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain’t right,
Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night,
Babe, I cry all the time!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I can’t stand the pain,
But when you hold me in your arms, I’ll sing it once again.
I’ll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it!
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah,
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby,
You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good.
I need you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart, now darling, yeah, c’mon now.
oh, oh, have a
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby.
You know you got it -whoahhhhh!!
Take it!
Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby,
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart, now darling, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Oh, oh, have a
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby, hey,
You know you got it, child, if it makes you feel good.
c –  1967 JERRY RAGOVOY / BERT BERNS

Wake Up! Smell Coffee! Pay Overdue Internet Bill!!

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Nothing quite like that gentle reminder from your Internet provider that your bill might be a little bit overdue… (i.e., they interrupt your service at 8 a.m. on the dot…)

You know, it isn’t actually my fault.

For years — literally — my bill was always due on the first of the month. And then, like, 2 months ago, I noticed that the due date had been randomly changed to the 23rd of the month — and they never officially told me this!! Or explained why!!

Of course, they might have told me this and explained why. I never actually read the bill. I just pay it on the first and throw the bill away.

When they changed my due date, I decided to ignore it and keep paying it on the first. This morning, they decided to stop ignoring the fact that I was ignoring them, and they introduced me to this concept of: pay your bill or we’re cutting you off.

So, anyway.  They sort of put a crimp in the joy of my first cup of coffee of the morning while I skim over email — noticing there was a new Red Hand Files newsletter from Nick Cave in there!! Yay! And when I went to click on it and read it — Ooops! Right at that precise moment it became 8 a.m. and then no Internet connection.

Aaaaaach. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.

Of course, their “fuck you” to me carried more weight.

So I called them and conversed with the robot and paid my fucking bill.

And here I now am. Doing laundry. Drinking coffee. Once again, beginning my day.

My cough seemed to get worse during the night, not better. So I didn’t sleep too great. When I finally did get some decent sleep, I overslept and then slept in until 6:30 am. But here’s hoping I will finally kick this stupid cold today.

Okay.

Yesterday was very interesting indeed!

I went to a gas station about 15 miles from here because they had a really great price on gas yesterday. (No, I didn’t drive 15 miles out of my way and use all that gas just to save on gas; it was on the way into town where I buy my groceries.)

It was evening already — dark out. That time that I actually find a little magical at a gas station in the middle of nowhere — all those lights and very few people anywhere around. Well, this lady who’s putting gas in her own car, looks over at me. And then looks at me again. And finally calls out to me: “Do you live in Crazeysburg?”

Me, astounded that anyone on Earth is actually speaking to me, gets very excited and says, “Yes, I do!”

It turns out that she’s my neighbor — she lives one house away from me. And she loves my new car! So she didn’t really recognize me at all, she recognized the car. And so we talked at length about “the car.”

And actually, an elderly couple was coming out of the dollar store, back before I went to NY, and they stopped in the parking lot and stared sort of spellbound at my grown-up, molten lava-colored Honda Civic, and said, “That’s a beautiful car.”

And in Rhinebeck, Sandra’s husband also really loved my new car. In fact, so did my mom — that fateful day when I took that trip to the cornfields of Hell and back and then finally hooked up with her. In a gas station in a tiny town called Clarksburg, where the first words out of her mouth were, “You have a new car!! You didn’t tell me! I’ve been driving all over for a fucking hour, looking for a white Honda Fit!”

Yeah, well. Anyway.

It is so weird to me, that I could own a car that anyone would look at twice, let alone fall in love with at first sight. And to have it be a car that I don’t actually emotionally connect to. I’m gracious, and say “thank you”, and all that. But somewhere deep inside, I’m usually thinking: you should see the car I really wanna buy…

But onward! It was kind of cool speaking to an actual neighbor (whose name was Angie). And now I know that everyone is noticing my new car (all 14 of the people who live around here). (And they’re probably wondering: How come she has that spiffy new car and the roof of her barn is still a complete wreck?! Where is her sense of home-owning priorities?)

Well, you know what Shakespeare said. Some are born with great cars, some achieve great cars, and others have great cars thrust upon them by the Honda dealership even though they were happy with their little Honda Fits and the roofs of their barns are still a complete wreck.

Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files newsletter today was really beautiful. About saying goodbye. And oddly enough, while I was meditating this morning, the man I wrote about recently  — the older married guy with cancer that I fell in love with who changed my life and then died — his essence came to me while I was meditating and he was saying something about me needing to let him go.

Naturally, I immediately blocked that. That’s my fallback position whenever anyone anywhere, living or dead, suggests something to me that would be in my best interests but that I have no desire whatsoever to accept, to acknowledge, or to even listen to.  (I’m making a joke of it but it actually isn’t funny.)

Then I did that Inner Being journaling thing right after the meditation, and there he was again — it was all about me needing to let that guy go. But it supposedly wasn’t about “saying goodbye,” it was about me evolving and expanding past where I am now and who I am now and to be really joyful about it, because spirits are eternal and that guy’s spirit isn’t actually going anywhere; you know, he’ll be there forever, but that I need to sort of redefine myself now and move into my future, and not think so much about someone who has moved on to the next realm.

So I said: okay, I will — think about it really seriously.

And then I put on my less churlish, grown-up self and reluctantly said, “Okay, I will.” And that twinge, you know — of goodbye. That I actually really have to do this and how much it sucks, even though my future is evolving into something really wonderful. And then that Red Hand Files letter being all about goodbyes. It was really bittersweet. Very beautiful.

All right. Speaking of Instagram! Which I was! I was inwardly saying that while there are remarkably fewer photos getting posted to Instagram re: the Nick Cave Conversations now (and I mean from, like, 20 down to like maybe three), Chicago looked like another great show. And tonight is Minneapolis! A town I don’t think I’ve ever been to. I’m not 100% positive about that. I might have passed through it at some point in my distant past. But what matters is that I won’t be there tonight! (I don’t mean that to sound like I’m excited to not be seeing Nick Cave tonight. I mean that it doesn’t matter whether or not I’ve ever been to Minneapolis before. Being there tonight would be the important thing, you know. Anyway.)

There is also a brand new Instagram account for my play Tell My Bones. I’m not a huge social media person. So I’m not really sure how you find it. I think maybe you just go to Instagram and look for tellmybones . And then, of course, follow it.

The website has still not launched but it will soon. (I’m guessing that you can guess what the URL will be…) I don’t handle any of that side of the marketing or publicity, etc., and it is so cool to just get alerts that all this stuff is happening! That all I’m in charge of is writing the play.

Okay, on that note — I gotta go write the play! (Well, that and finish doing the laundry.)

Thanks for visiting, guys. Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. All other things in my heart considered, I’m doing okay with tomorrow being the anniversary of Tom Petty’s death. I’m just moving on in all kinds of ways here, aren’t I? But I do leave you with this, “In the Dark of the Sun,” from their 1991 album Into the Great Wide Open. Okay. I love you guys. See ya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXekIfSPOH4

“In the Dark of the Sun”

In the dark of the sun will you save me a place?
Give me hope, give me comfort, get me to
A better place?
I saw you sail across a river
Underneath Orion’s sword
In your eyes there was a freedom
I had never known before

Hey, yeah, yeah, in the dark of the sun
We will stand together
Yeah we will stand as one in the dark of the sun

Past my days of great confusion
Past my days of wondering why
Will I sail into the heavens
Constellations in my eyes?

Hey, yeah, yeah, in the dark of the sun
We will stand together
Yeah we will stand as one in the dark of the sun

c – 1991 Tom Petty

How Exciting!

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I was just sitting down to do the blog and I checked my email, and what to my wondering eyes should appear? A Red Hand Files newsletter (two, actually) announcing a new double album from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds coming next week.

Ghosteen.

It sounds like it is going to be sort of intense. As if Skeleton Tree wasn’t difficult enough for me to listen to. Of course, it’s worth the emotional payoff.  In spades, but still. A tiny little voice, deep in the center of my mind is fearfully fretting: oh no, now what?!

Because I don’t ever just listen to Nick Cave; I react on every level.

It’s funny, during the night, I awoke and was thinking about the Conversation from Saturday night and when a guy in the balcony asked him when a new album would be coming out, Nick Cave didn’t reply to it. I can’t recall now if he literally did not reply or if he said something that was not a reply. Anyway, I was pondering that during the night; wondering why he didn’t reply. And now, voila. The real reply.

I was also thinking last night how interesting it is that the 2 songs I remember most from Saturday night were 2 songs that he didn’t write. I remember all of the songs, but just the 2 that stood out most for me emotionally were songs he didn’t write: Cosmic Dancer and Shivers.

I think that Shivers is such a beautiful song. It seems like it always bothered Rowland Howard a lot — how people responded to that song. I don’t think he wanted people to like it so much. He seems maybe to have written it from a perspective of ironic contempt and then people responded to the ironic beauty of it, instead.  (Well, there’s irony for you!) I personally think it’s a song of truly timeless relevant beauty. I really do. I was wondering if Rowland Howard has a different perspective on it now from where he’s at. I’m guessing he does. I think that when we die, we immediately embrace and embody the love of everything beautiful that we created while we were physical, even if we were at odds with it and couldn’t see its beauty while we were alive.

Anyway, Nick Cave sang it so beautifully on Saturday night; it was spellbinding.

Last night, I looked it up on YouTube and there’s an extremely old live version of  it. I don’t remember now if it was the Boys Next Door or the Birthday Party, but it was really cool to watch it.

There is something sort of cosmic in just that process. You know, on the one hand, experiencing the emotional beauty and intensity of hearing Nick Cave sing that song live right now, at his age now — a song of such precise teenage angst; and then holding a little phone in your hand and watching him sing it so differently but no less beautifully when he’s so young.  Maybe close to 40 years ago — something like that.

Perhaps you can see that I had sort of a strange evening last night.

I was determined to just rest and not go out walking. It was hot out and of course teeming with people everywhere. Plus, I really was just exhausted. So I forced myself to stay in and go to bed early. And I probably really and truly did relax for the first time in a year. But I did find my thoughts going to strange places. Or unexpected places, is more accurate.

For instance, I listened to an old audio interview with Tom Petty from the late 80s, when Full Moon Fever first came out. Back in the days when he only just barely tolerated interviewers and you can always hear his contempt for the person and the whole process bobbing just under the surface of everything he says. The guy asked him a question about perspectives in songwriting and Tom Petty replied re: using all three perspectives at various points— first, second, and third perspectives. And I found myself feeling a little surprised that he knew about terms like that! But you know — he was actually really smart. I’m not sure why I find it surprising that he could express concepts and stuff like that. How weird, right?

Ah well. It only made me start missing him a lot, so I stopped listening to it.

And then I was also thinking about certain streets from my past that are right around here. For instance, this street I’m staying on — W.53rd. MoMA is on this  street, but a few avenues east. I used to work at MoMA a long, long time ago. In fact, that’s where I met Peitor and we became instant friends. It was an important time in my life— working at MoMA. Frank O’Hara is probably my most favorite poet. I first fell in love with him when I was 15. And so for me, working at MoMA was my way of trying to absorb his spirit, his essence. (He worked there as a curator when he wrote pretty much ALL of his best poems and when he died, he was still working there. Modern Art was a huge part of his emotional sensibilities.)

Anyway. I had nearly forgotten all about that. And then W.50th Street. I’ve walked across it numerous times this trip, and only last night recalled that I used to live on it —just around the corner from here — and that my song, “Breaking Glass,” was written about a relationship I was in while living there. My first husband proposed marriage to me in that apartment — one afternoon while he was visiting me.

And then on Saturday, on my way to that incredible meeting with the director re: my play, the Lyft driver drove passed E. 66th Street on 3rd Avenue and it was in an apartment on that very block of E.66th Street that my one and only baby was conceived.

I thought last night about how strange it was that I have always retained that. Not the actual apartment number. I would not recognize the building if I saw it again. I just always remember that it was on E.66th Street, between 3rd and 2nd Avenues. So sad.

Well, anyway. I must say that blogging on a phone is a wee bit annoying… this one-finger typing business.

Okay, so I’m gonna close this now. I’m gonna try to wash my hair before Valerie arrives. And then I will be indescribably eager to see Nick Cave in Conversation again tonight. I think it will be an entirely different experience from up in the balcony, though — even though, normally, I actually prefer the balcony at Town Hall.  (Tonight, however, I think that I will not be preferring it.) (If only I were one of those people who felt really comfortable defying public convention; I would look to see which seats remain empty down on the main floor and go sit in one! But I’m just somebody who totally behaves in public and does not wish to draw undue attention to myself, ever!!)

All righty!! Have a great Monday, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

Ghosteen Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

 

Dawn Arrives in Rhinebeck

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It’s a truly peaceful morning here in Rhinebeck!! Below (at the bottom) is a photo I took just now from the bed.

One nice thing I was able to do for Sandra the moment I got here, was blow out a fuse here in the guest room!! And try as we might, we can’t fix it! So  an expensive electrician needs to be called in!! Please feel free to invite me to stay in your guest room whenever you’d like to!!

Anyway. I am doing things the old-fashioned way— relying on the daylight hours to write in my journal. Oh, and of course, using my iPhone to guide me in the darkness! Just like my pioneering ancestors did!!

Nick Cave sent out the best Red Hand Files newsletter yesterday. I’d link to it but I’m not certain how to do all that on my phone while I’m posting to the blog. Anyway, it was a really beautiful newsletter and luckily it arrived right before I took off for my 500-mile drive to NY. It really just helped me have a great frame of mind and I had just the best trip!!

i made it in exactly 9 hours, door to door. Unheard of!! It’s usually close to 10 or 11 hours, due to traffic. But yesterday,  everything was just absolutely perfect!! No traffic, no road construction blocking anything. Gorgeous weather! I sailed right through.

And it was so nice, as I was driving away from my house, to have my birth mom standing there, waving goodbye to me at my kitchen door. She just loves me so much.  She’s very introverted and quiet, but she is just so sweet to me. When I think of how terribly I missed her all through my childhood, it is still hard for me to grasp that she is now such a part of my life. I located her when I was 25, so it’s been many years already. Still, I am so blessed to have found her.

So.

Saturday, Sandra and I meet with the director in the city re: Tell My Bones., even though I still haven’t even attempted to begin those rewrites he wants for the ending of the play,  But it’s just so great to be here with Sandra and have her as a sounding board, too. She does feel extremely positive about the drastic changes I’ve made to the script. So that’s really good.

There’s a lot going on here re: our other play in Toronto. I can’t really go into it on the blog, but we just have a lot on our plate. So it will be some intense days around here.

All right. I’m gonna go downstairs and grab some more coffee. Thanks for visiting, gang! I love you guys. See ya!

View from the bed at dawn.

 

Jubilation, Baby!! It’s Done!

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Yes, I finished the rewrites of Tell My Bones last night, and I spent today, tweaking things here & there and searching for the elusive typos…

And I just now sent copies off to the director, and to Sandra, and to Gus Van Sant, Sr. And now I want to simply collapse.

No, actually what I want to do is have a cigarette and a beer or something, but that’s not what’s going to happen. I don’t think…

No, I’m certain that’s not going to happen because I gave all the beer to the lawn care guys this morning and I’m too fucking tired to even think about leaving the house.

So. Collapse beer-less and cigarette-less is how it’s gonna play out tonight!

Nick Cave sent out not one but two Red Hand Files newsletters today!! So that was pretty darned exciting. For me, anyway, since I would appreciate it if he could send out one or two every day. They were quite interesting. You can read them there at the link.

Anyway.

My big adventure today was that when I drove my brand new Honda Civic to town to go grocery shopping very early this morning, I discovered one of those green garden spiders clinging to the trunk of my car! So, rather than let him get crushed on the highway or in the parking lot, I put him in my trunk and drove him home. And then took him out of the trunk and put him on one of my many, many morning glory vines. And he seemed extremely happy. He was quite the adventurer. I found him so interesting — you know, do spiders create their own realities? Did he want to go for a ride on the outside of a new car? Did I disappoint him by putting him in the trunk? Was he relieved? Grateful? Just disoriented and confused by me??

I don’t know what it is about me and spiders, but I do have quite a number of them — all different kinds. As long as they aren’t big enough for me to see, like, every single one of their eyes, I’m cool with it.

Okay, gang. I am absolutely beat. I can barely even spell now so I’m gonna close! I hope you had a terrific Tuesday, wherever you were and whatever you did!! Thanks for visiting! I love you guys. See ya.

Dicey, Indeed!

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Let’s say that yesterday was Keanu Reeves’ 55th birthday. And that you saw some mention of it in your Instagram feed, so you rashly decided to start following #keanureeves.

Wow, you know what happens then? Your Instagram feed gets positively inundated with photos of Keanu, at every stage of his professional life, from every film, every magazine, every TV talk show appearance, every moment he was out on some street within the range of some photographer’s lens.

I’m now getting photo after photo after photo of Keanu. What’s nice about that, though, is that it doesn’t require me to think at all. I don’t even have to hit the “like” button either. I can just sort of scroll away, into oblivion, not thinking, not liking or unliking, just staring.

I enjoy not thinking. I so rarely get the chance.

I might actually unfollow everybody else in order to just have an endless stream of photos of Keanu that don’t require me to do any thinking at all.

We’ll see.

Here’s something that is getting to me, though. I think that the closer we get to the anniversary of Tom Petty’s death (which came really close to his birthday, too, regrettably), Dana is posting stuff that is really hard for me to take. Just personal, simple stuff. I’m never gonna unfollow her, that’s for certain. But last night, when I went to sleep, the final post I saw in my feed was of him in bed with his dog and his cat, talking to them, some movie playing in the background. You couldn’t see him — just the dog and the cat, but you could hear him. It made me sad because not only was it just so simple, but he apparently died in that bed. Even though the paramedics got his heart going again, his brain never came back and so he “technically” died at the hospital. Still, you know. He was in that bed.

Then first thing this morning at 5:30am, for some reason, the very moment my eyes opened, I checked my Instagram feed and I don’t usually do that first thing. I’m usually awake for hours before I do that. But right there in front of me, was another 40-second clip of him in bed with his dog, and he was playing a harmonica — the really high-pitched notes– to make his dog go a little nutty. It was cute, of course. But it broke my heart. Because I ponder all of it: the bedroom, the drapes, the choice of colors in there, the books on the shelves, the furnishings, the man alive in the bed loving his dog, the wife he loved right next to him, filming it with her phone, again the TV on in the background  — everything.

I don’t really know what to do with that information, you know? Because he’s dead now, and when he was alive, I don’t think he wanted a bunch of strangers to see that private stuff. But now, I guess it doesn’t really matter what he would have wanted back then. And I can’t not ponder it. But there is no sort of answer to be gotten from it or anything.

All right.

Well, today is all about getting myself out the door soon because I have my interview for the TSA Precheck and I have to drive 100 miles. I’m not even exaggerating; such is the price one pays when one lives in the middle of nowhere. I’m hoping it gets processed before I have to go to New York City, which is right around the corner.

I finally heard from Sandra this morning! Meaning that she finally texted me, at dawn. We haven’t discussed anything yet re: Tell My Bones rewrites, or even the other play we’re working on re: Toronto. But at least I finally heard from her. I know the trip will go well. I just know it. There are nothing but loose ends, but it’ll all work out.

There’s a new Red Hand Files newsletter from Nick Cave today, really beautiful, about forgiveness. You can check it out at the link there, if you want to.

And now I gotta scoot. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with a shot of my kitchen table from last night. As you can see, I’m a little behind on my MOJO Magazines. However, my table looks really good compared to how it looked before I actually cleared most of the junk off! (I know…)

And here’s what I was playing on the little jukebox. Enjoy! I love you guys. See ya.

“Hungry Heart”

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going

[Chorus:]
Everybody’s got a hungry heart
Everybody’s got a hungry heart
Lay down your money and you play your part
Everybody’s got a hungry heart

I met her in a Kingstown bar
We fell in love. I knew it had to end
We took what we had and we ripped it apart
Now here I am down in Kingstown again

[Chorus]

Everybody needs a place to rest
Everybody wants to have a home
Don’t make no difference what nobody says
Ain’t nobody like to be alone

[Chorus]

c – 1980 Bruce Springsteen

Va Tutto Bene!

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Yes! Everything is all right!

It was with great joy that I watched the trash collectors collecting my trash yesterday. Honestly, it helped me feel a restoration of sanity around here, knowing that I had paid that fucking bill. And the 2 other bills that had crept up “past due.”

What a weird feeling that was last week, when they didn’t stop to collect my trash. Sort of the confirmation that I was really soaring off into La-La Land around here. That is the cheapest bill I have, too. Something like $9 a month. Anyway. That felt good; watching the trash go.

I’ve also acquiesced to the window-closing thing that I have to do around here now. I close a few of  them late at night and then just open them again mid-morning. Just like a normal person would do.

It was 54 degrees Fahrenheit when I got out of bed today. Honestly, at any other point in my life, I would be rapturously rejoicing over this perfect weather, you know? It’s just this darn deadline for the play that makes me feel as if summer passed me by. And it also occurs to me that next August, when it’s back to being 102 degrees when I get out of bed in the morning, I will be wondering: why the fuck didn’t I enjoy last August’s perfect weather when I had the chance??!! So I’m trying to do that while I have the chance.

Then I also did all the paperwork for my TSA Pre-Check, and will go for my interview on Tuesday. Yes, behaving like a human being who flies in airplanes again. I’m trying really hard to just be normal.

(And I also applied for that special International Customs dispensation, that removes any traces of internationally-known pedophiles who attached themselves uninvited to one’s illustrious pornography career. It only costs an additional 17 thousand dollars, but I felt it was worth it!) (I am, of course, kidding about that. There is no special International Customs dispensation for that. Instead, I opted for the Special Notarized Document showing that I did everything the FBI asked me to do so please leave me alone now. That only cost me an additional $2, so I opted for that.) (I am of course kidding about that, too.)

What I am doing, though, is just trying to let everything go. And fly in airplanes again and stuff like that. I realize that being out of my mind half the time is just part of my charm, but it sure gets tiring.

And I have also discovered that I don’t really like those new hair-volumizing products from France that I posted about recently.  They smell great and they do give me volume at the roots, but like most hair products that allegedly give one’s hair volume, they make the rest of my hair super frizzy. I can’t stand that.  So rather than get rid of all my mirrors, I’ve decided that I’m once more going back to my tried & true Avalon Organics. Honestly it’s the only stuff that works. (If you don’t have untreated silver hair, let me tell you, it’s really frizzy. It’s nothing at all like the hair you had as a wee bonny girl — or even as a wee bonny 30-year-old.)

(Me, as a wee bonny 30-year-old. Say goodbye to that hair forever.) (Heavy sigh)So, even though I have not yet cleaned my house (and this is really just getting beyond ridiculous, gang — the dust and the cat hair — but I know I will have to clean it top to bottom before I go to NYC because my birth mom will be staying here to take care of the cats and I don’t want her coming in my kitchen door, seeing the disaster and then turning around and leaving. Actually, what she would do is clean my house and I don’t want that, either.).

But anyway, aside from my house needing to be cleaned, I am really starting to feel like a regular person again. Even though I’m still working on rewrites of the play.

And of course, on that happy note, I’m gonna get back to it. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music, the song about the Lime Tree Arbor. A beautiful song. I’ve been playing The Boatman’s Call since Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files newsletter the other day. I guess it’s an appropriate album to listen to as summer departs. (His Conversations will be back in Norway tonight. We’ll see if the Norwegians continue to post pictures to Instagram in black & white, or if that other time was just done specifically to drive me mad…)

Okay! Thanks for visiting, gang. I gotta get moving here. Have a really nice Thursday, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys. See ya!

“I Do Love Her So (Lime Tree Arbour)”

The boatman calls from the lake
A lone loon dives upon the water
I put my hand over her
Down in the lime tree arbour

The wind in the trees is whispering
Whispering low that I love her
She puts her hand over mine
Down in the lime tree arbour

Through every breath that I breathe
And every place I go
There is hand that protects me
And I do love her so

There will always be suffering
It flows through life like water
I put my hand over hers
Down in the lime tree arbour

The boatman he has gone
And the loons have flown for cover
She puts her hand over mine
Down in the lime tree arbour

Through every word that I speak
And every thing I know
There is hand that protects me
And I do love her so

c – 1997 Nick Cave

6:15am — In Case You’re Curious!

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Meaning, the exact time that the first bird starts singing around here in the mornings now.

A far cry from 4:15, which is when they would begin singing in late spring — that heady season when I felt like I had all the time in the world.

Even though the director texted me late last evening and relieved some of my pressure — saying that he really loved where the new pages in the play were heading,  giving me that insight I needed to give the section more emotional depth; none of it changes that the summer really is almost over and I have way too much of the play left to rewrite.

Not that it’s so many pages; it’s that the pages left are crucial ones that need an indescribably focused amount of my concentration.

However, this morning, when I awoke stressed at 4:28am, I realized that I needed to change everything. Well, not everything. I just needed to change the angle from which I was looking at my trip.

There’s just no way I can be in any kind of meaningful “rehearsals” by mid-September when I still have all this contractual stuff with the director to work out before hand, and now the budget is really huge so I have no clue what Sandra’s going to want to do regarding staged readings. So I decided to just let Cosmic Timing take over and step back and allow something higher to figure out my life and stop trying to constantly connect the dots.

And I decided I would talk to my sales rep at Honda and just let him decide if I should lease the new car before I went to NY or after I came back. I have to stop worrying about the car.  I’m turning it into a drama in my head and it just doesn’t need to be one.

And then I decided I want to get rid of that idea of staying in 2 different hotels when I’m in the city for Nick Cave, even though one of the hotels is the Algonquin. I decided to get an airbnb, instead, and just stay for 3 nights in a row — in Manhattan: Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and just hang out, have the meetings with Sandra and the director and then just do whatever I want. Not worry about going back and forth to Rhinebeck in the middle of those 2 Nick Cave shows. It just wasn’t making any sense to do that. It was making me nutty.

So I just gave up trying to connect the dots. Just let life happen because it’s going to happen anyway.

I also decided that I’m not going to the cemetery today. It’s funny how, some years, I will just barely notice the anniversary of Greg’s death; and other years, it becomes very active in my memory; and sometimes I’ll go to the cemetery; other times, I don’t. I don’t know why that is.

I do know that going to the cemetery makes me sad because it always becomes so clear to me, when I’m there, that everybody else forgot about him a long, long time ago. No flowers there, ever. No nothing. Just grass growing. It has been just so many years. Life went on.

I have a hard time with certain aspects of that, even though, overall, I understand that’s just the way things are. I don’t want to get morbid about any of it. But sometimes life just confounds me. It doesn’t seem to make any sense. What the heck is it — life, I mean. You know? What is it?

Plus, I’m not ready to find out if his mom has died now, too. That would be sort of final, right? His long ago doorway into this world being gone forever now, too.

This summer, he has been all over my thoughts. I just don’t know why. Late yesterday afternoon, I decided to set Tell My Bones aside for a minute, get it out of my brain completely and work on one of the chapters in Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. They aren’t actually “chapters,” they really are more like letters; creative nonfiction memoir type letters. Anyway, the next “chapter” has been sitting on my desk, halfway finished for months now and it’s one that has a lot to do with Greg. It’s about sexual intercourse — the specific actual thing. It’s titled “A Beach to His Waves.” And while working on it for about 8 hours last night, it was funny to see how, when I am in love with a guy, I will just do anything for that guy.  Anything. My focus becomes like a laser beam and nothing peripheral exists, really, except my love for that guy.

I find that so curious since, when I don’t love a guy (which is almost all the time; I don’t fall in love easily), I am indescribably independent. Self-involved. Uninterested in anything besides the constant creative thoughts that are in my head. Live alone; die alone; just be a sort of constant, eternal loner. But, Jesus, fall in love with a guy? Suddenly it’s like: Oh, yeah; my very reason for being; I forgot I had one. And then almost nothing else matters but “the guy.”

Anyway, so I’m going to be working on that chapter again today, too — the 45th anniversary of his death.  Even though the chapter is only partly about him, it’s still kind of fitting.

There’s another Red Hand Files newsletter from Nick Cave in my inbox. It has something to do with PJ Harvey because I saw the picture at the top, but I haven’t read it yet.

And people in Helsinki like to post to Instagram!! Everybody loved the Conversation that Nick Cave had there last night. Even the ones who didn’t post in English — judging by the amount of exclamation points and the many rhapsodic emojis… Everyone seemed incredibly blissed out. And I mean incredibly. He is giving another one there tonight.

So, that’s me, for now. I gotta scoot. I’m just gonna let life happen to me today.  I’m just gonna write. Do yoga. Do laundry. Stop trying to figure everything out. It is utterly impossible anyway.

I leave you with this, it was my favorite record at the time of Greg’s death. He didn’t care one way or the other about David Bowie, but he didn’t mind that I played the record all the time. Obviously, since Greg had very long blond hair and blue eyes, you can guess why this song became really difficult for me after he died. But it’s still a really, really cool song.

Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you more than words can say, guys. See ya!

Hmm…Will Chocolate Ice Cream Solve This Problem?

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It turns out, the answer is yes.

Do not let others dissuade you. Do not let others bombard you with practicality, or encourage you to resort to reason. When all else fails (and I do mean ALL else), and you are too distracted by the thoughts that are in your wee bonny head and you cannot focus and get back to work, get in your fucking car and go get chocolate ice cream.

I was absolutely derailed today by somebody’s  Red Hand Files newsletter that arrived in my inbox at an odd time — meaning, when I was sitting at the laptop with the play in front of me, anticipating a stellar day of writing and then did a quick check of my email…

This week, Nick Cave was replying to a fan who wanted to better understand the lyrics to the song”Rings of Saturn,” from off of the Skeleton Tree album, and his explanation sort of left me super distracted and I wasn’t able to get back to planet Earth until I finally gave in and went and got chocolate. (You can read what he said if you wish to; it’s linked up there above.)

I’m not somebody who eats a lot of chocolate, although I eat about an ounce of organic, imported, high-cocoa content chocolate every day. Which basically means that it’s good for your heart and there’s absolutely no joy left in it.

And sometimes you just need it, you know? You need to sort of saturate your brain with an all-out love-bomb of pure sugar-laden, fat-heavy JOY, in order to stop feeling like you’re needing something you can’t have, and get over it, and get back to focusing on your Pulitzer Prize.

The problem is, I actually love chocolate. And having a carton of chocolate ice cream in my freezer only means that I will eat the entire contents of the  carton long before any risk of freezer burn sets in. (Do you ever look at the expiration dates on certain items and just chuckle, sort of uncontrollably? Like, on what planet would this carton of ice cream still be in my freezer past, like, Friday??!!)

Anyway. I have had my emergency ice cream placebo for the moment. (And yes, I bought Hershey’s chocolate syrup, too, and everyone in the checkout line at the dollar store looked at me with my 2 items full of chocolatey-goodness and looked like they thought I was either high and getting ready to binge out, or like they were high and really wanted to come home with me.) But I am back on track. My brain is my own again. And I still have all night to get some stellar writing done.

It is indescribably humid here today, gang. Not too hot, thank god, but humid beyond belief. I’m hoping it will rain soon, or downpour torrentially because I’m sweating like crazy and can barely breathe, the air is so thick. My wee bonny de-humidifier is working overtime.  But I have noticed that chocolate ice cream actually helps me think. It really does. So I’m not gonna worry about the poor air quality or the 86-degrees-Fahrenheit heat. I’m just gonna write!! And if the brain dies and I need more chocolate ice cream in a hurry, I know where to find it!

Okay, gang! Thanks for visiting. I got a lot I need to get to before night falls. I love you guys. See ya!

Image result for vintage ads for refrigerators
Looks like somebody’s found the ice cream!!