I’m hoping that if I can focus on something besides every single solitary thought that’s in my head, it will help me get better. We’ll see.
I know I don’t have pneumonia, because I feel absolutely perfectly fine except for this inability to breathe normally. If I lie perfectly still in bed, I breathe normally. And in fact, I sleep great. I’m feeling absolutely fine. But as soon as I get out of bed and start moving around, the out-of-breath thing starts in again and I am just so fucking tired of it. This is Day 17 already.
Anyway.
I’m still loving Vienna Blood (PBS) but I am already halfway through the final episode. I hope they are going to plan on making a Season 2. The writing is a tiny bit uneven, because I feel like they’re trying to cram too much plot from the novels into a 45-minute episode, which means suddenly a chunk of dialogue will happen that is purely exposition and it kind of sticks out from the rest of the story. But it’s negligible, and if you aren’t a writer, you might not even notice it at all. It does make me want to read the novels, though. (Vienna Blood is based on the Max Lieberman novels by Frank Tallis.)
And actually on a similar note… I am seriously considering just starting my own small press again. I mentioned this in a post a few days ago. But now I’m actually really thinking about it. First, just to put into Print on Demand my own titles, and then maybe consider publishing other writers who are super fringe. I have to really think about it, though, because it would mean looking into actual distribution and marketing if I published other writers, too. And I’m already — virus notwithstanding — a tad bit busy.
I’ve been wanting to get Twilight of the Immortal back into print with an updated cover, instead of just having it as an eBook. And then publish Blessed by Light, In the Shadow of Narcissa, Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse, Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town, Down to the Meadows of Sleep: The Hurley Falls Mystery, and maybe do Print on Demand editions of The Muse Revisited collection, and finally clean up all the typos in those specific eBook collections.
Part of the allure of it is knowing that I don’t have to worry about the content and how it would fit into someone else’s marketing agenda. I can make it as hardcore as I want (without going off into those areas where I’m looking at prison time again, of course…) The main problem with most of my work has always been that it’s both too literary and too erotic. And now it needs to be one or the other to appease most small presses these days. (Plus, I’ve gotten just ridiculously tired of waiting to hear back from other small presses who simply just never get back to you.)
So I’m really considering it. The investment is in the cover design, but other than that, the cost to produce each book is negligible. Between my popularity among international book piraters and the state of small presses now, I don’t know that it even makes financial sense to give up a portion of my rights to small presses anymore. Better to give a cut to the actual printer (what’s left after hemorrhaging potential profits to book pirating, I mean) and then just try to arrange readings when I’m off hither and yon doing the various film & theater projects.
Which reminds me that the other play I’m doing with Sandra (with the fluctuating title) that’s being produced in Toronto, has been pushed from this Fall off to the misty glades of 2021. So I’m guessing it will premiere on June 3rd, when I’ll be with my new friends in Switzerland to see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds…
(As usual, I sure hope I’m kidding about that.)
Okay. Well. It is going to be a really gorgeous day here today. It was pretty yesterday, but it was cold. Today, it is going to be super sunny and really mild. I can probably open some windows around here, which always makes me so happy!!
And I am hoping to spend less time in bed today. I really am. I so want to be past this virus and start writing again. We shall see.
I hope you guys are all in a good space on this wonderful Monday in Pandemic Land. I’m gonna go finish up the laundry now, check in with my dad, get another cup of coffee. Thanks for visiting, gang! I leave you with some very fun Ringo Starr music from I don’t even remember when — the 1970s? “The No No Song,” which of course, I can attest to now, but when it was an actual hit, I was quite far from it… (if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, you gotta listen to the song! The lyrics are in the video, gang!) Okay. Enjoy!! I love you guys. See ya!
I’m trying not to get zealous and overdo it around here, but I do think the virus has moved out of my lungs, finally.
I awoke at 4:30am and laid there for awhile, feeling absolutely fantastic. My breathing was completely back to normal for the first time in 9 days. Plus, my bed felt really incredible. On the phone yesterday, my dad had persuaded me to change my sheets and wash the blankets, etc., because I’d been in the same bedding since before I’d gotten sick.
And then I realized I’d also been wearing the same darn chemise with the same white tee shirt on top of it for the entire time, too.
Even though I had found the energy everyday to take a 2-minute shower, I would just get right back into the same chemise, tee shirt, and collapse back into the same bed linens. And I realized that my dad was right — it was probably a good idea to get up the energy to do some laundry.
Just FYI — even though, on the outside — or I should say “verbally” — my reaction to anything any man ever tells me to do is to automatically say “no;” I am in fact intensely submissive by nature and, 99.9% of the time, I will first say “no” and then do exactly what I’m told.
MY DAD (on phone): “You really ought to wash those sheets, Marilyn. That virus is probably all over them.”
ME (on phone): “I don’t think so. I’m so tired. I don’t think the virus lives that long on fabric…” (gets out of bed, washes sheets, then washes everything else in sight)
(The only man I say “no” to and then steadfastly adhere to that intensely negative mindset is the second husband. When/if he ever advises me to do something, I not only automatically say “no,” but a filter type thing — called “You’re Not the Boss of Me” — also gets lowered down over the inside of my brain to ensure that no advise he is trying to give me permeates my consciousness in any way whatsoever.)
Okay. Anyway. All those clean sheets and blankets and the clean tee shirt/chemise helped me get the best sleep I’d had in awhile.
And now I’ve officially switched to the Spring/Summer sheets, too — the 125,000-thread-count pure cotton sheets from Italy. So it was really just a great night’s sleep, and I woke up breathing. Like I used to do 9 days ago.
I don’t know how you guys are about Easter (assuming you celebrate it at all), but for me, even though it’s a joyous holiday, it’s also a day where I do a lot of thinking about my life. Meaning, if the Resurrection is telling me anything at all, it’s telling me to look at my life before I die. Is this how I want to be living it? If not, then here’s yet another chance to try to get it right.
Usually, every single darn year, my answer is “no, this is not how I want to be living my life,” and in this case, the word “no” is not because I have a serious issue with male authority. It’s because whenever I’m pressed to really take account of my life, I’m simply never satisfied with how I’m living it.
The older I get, the tighter the focus gets on “my work.” If I die today, and leave this huge amount of unfinished work behind, it would be okay. Because I honestly believe that we get to finish in the Afterlife whatever we left unfinished here.
However, I also believe really strongly that I didn’t come here to be physical and to start a bunch of projects, just to go back over there (wherever there is) and finish them there, you know? Why bother to come here at all then, right? So I am hopeful that, before I die, I’ll finish all these many projects I have that are half-finished. Even if I don’t get them out into the world, I’d like to at least leave a tidy stack of finished novels, memoirs, stories, micro-short screenplays, and plays on my desk, with a little handwritten note to my sister on the top of the stack: Please take care of these. Thank you.
(Plus, I still really, really want to record that album with Peitor, of maybe 14 or 15 of my favorite songs that I wrote when I was a singer-songwriter, too.) (Readers of this lofty blog, perhaps recall that back when a VP at Columbia Records was trying to get me signed there, Peitor produced a demo for me in his studio that I absolutely loved. He made my songs & my voice sound like nothing else I had ever heard before; I really felt he captured a certain magic in my songs. But the VP at Columbia Records famously said to me, “Why are you singing like this? I can’t do anything with this.” So I’d really like a chance to go back into the studio for real this time, and have Peitor produce all of my best songs. Maybe title it: This is Why I’m Singing Like This, Even If You Can’t Do Anything With It…)
So, since it was Easter yesterday, I was thinking about this stuff — my life. And realizing that I’m going to be 60 in about 14 seconds, so I really need to make a commitment to trying harder to get this stuff done.
Part of the challenge is that most of my projects aim a little higher than I can reach, so I always have to evolve as a writer while I’m in the process of doing the writing. My vision for what I want to achieve with my work is always way out there beyond my grasp, so I am always in the process of finding my way. (When I first began writing Neptune & Surf in 1994, inspired by an extremely long day/night of drinking in Coney Island with Holly Lane, I had never written anything longer than short stories. I know for a fact that I re-wrote the opening page to that book 60 or 70 times before I could even undertake writing the rest of the book; I was trying to learn how to write.)
Well, anyway, I decided yesterday that for however long I continue to be alive over here on this side of reality, my mind is just going to have to work harder. Find better words. String them together in a better way. And then if I die anyway and nothing’s finished, well, I’ll worry about it when I get to the Afterlife.
On other topics — I am now deeply into Love in the Time of Cholera and just loving every moment of that book. It is indeed better to be reading it during not only a pandemic, but also to be in some weird form of all-consuming love that has no roadmap whatsoever. It’s good to be reminded that for all time, throughout everything, people have managed to love unconditionally with no hope of grasping any conclusion, while life just went barreling on and tumbling down all around them.
So. I’m learning to just let each day be whatever it has to be.
The Nick Cave art book, Stranger Than Kindness, is just really interesting — thought-provoking; indeed a ponderer’s paradise. Although his handwriting is often just indescribably indecipherable. Lots of original versions of song lyrics are in the book. And I really love seeing what writers write, re-write, re-visit, and then compare it to what was ultimately chosen as the finished vision.
I’m not super well-informed about The Birthday Party era of Nick Cave’s career. I have the Boys Next Door album (CD) that has the song “Shivers” on it and I think that album is so good. It really captures that era of music so well. The songs are very good, too, when placed directly in that whole scene. But I didn’t know anything about the Boys Next Door or the The Birthday Party when I first discovered Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in 1985. I was so blown away by the Bad Seeds stuff that I hit the ground running with that. (Plus, it was really difficult and expensive to get import albums back then, even in NYC, and I was extremely poor back then.) Over recent years, I have since watched various videos of The Birthday Party on YouTube and they are really good songs.
I also have had the book King Ink, since forever. (Scarily enough, I now see that I have had it for 31 years now. It is really extremely difficult at this moment to wrap my mind around that number.) I remember the day I bought it so perfectly. I was in St. Mark’s Bookstore, on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. I had no money to speak of, but I was planning to buy some of those underground zines that I used to love — and I got published in several of them, too, btw.
My eyesight must have been amazing back then because I remember the whole sky cracking open when I suddenly saw, way over at the front of the store, way up high, behind the cash registers, far, far from where anyone could possibly touch it or steal it, there was a book written by Nick Cave.
I was, like, holy fucking moly. And I put everything down that I was thinking I was going to buy and went directly to the cashier and asked him if that book was by Nick Cave the songwriter, and he said yes, and then I told him I had to have that book. He looked at me dubiously because he had to climb up on a ladder to retrieve it and he said sort of disgustedly, “It’s $25…”
I was quite taken aback by that amount because I truly couldn’t afford that amount, but I still had to have it, so I made the guy get it down for me, and I bought it without even knowing what the fuck it was. It was the only copy of the book that they had (it was an import from England) and I felt like the cashier was going to grab it right back from me because I’m sure it was written all over my face: oh my god, I can’t afford this. So I bought it. (And we won’t discuss the myriad insane things I had to scramble around and do back in those days to try to scrape together my fucking rent even without buying a $25 book.)
Well, long story even longer — all The Birthday Party song lyrics were included in King Ink. So I have at least known the lyrics to their songs since 1989. But I didn’t know the music to them until years later.
Their songs are very, very interesting. Intense, dark, funny, and, well, intense. And a couple of the original handwritten lyrics are included in Stranger Than Kindness. So I was thinking about those songs a lot yesterday, too. I played “Mutiny in Heaven” on YouTube several times. While it’s obviously dark, I think it’s just an incredible song.Unbelievable. (It is down below the photograph.)
Anyway. In the photo from one of my bookcases in my family room just now, you can see that I thought it was worth the $25 I didn’t have — 6 moves and 31 years later. (Oh, and down at the bottom of that horizontal stack, is a book that contains the script and some movie stills from Francois Truffaut’s famous film, The 400 Blows. I took the book out of the local library when I was 15 and loved that book (and the film itself) so much, that I wound up stealing that book from the library and was not allowed to use the library ever again. But you can see that I thought that book was worth it, too — 14 moves and 45 years later.)
Okay, see ya, gang. I gotta scoot! Thanks for visiting. I love you!!
“Mutiny In Heaven”
Well ah jumpt! and fled this fucken heap on doctored wings
Mah flailin pinions, with splints and rags and crutches!
(Damn things nearly hardly flap)
Canker upon canker upon one million tiny punctures
That look like…
Long thin red ribbons draped across the arms of a lil mortal girl
(Like a ground -plan of Hell)
Curse these smartin strings! These fucken ruptures!
Enough! Enough is enough!
(If this is Heaven ah’m bailin out)
If this is Heaven ah’m bailin out
Ah caint tolerate this ol tin-tub
So fulla trash and rats! Felt one crawl across mah soul
For a seckon there , as thought as wassa back down in the ghetto!
(Rats in Paradise! Rats in Paradise!)
Ah’m bailin out! There’s a mutiny in Heaven!
Ah wassa born…
And Lord shakin, even then was dumpt into some icy font
Like some great stinky unclean!
From slum-chuch to slum-church, ah spilt mah heart
To some fat cunt behind a screen…
Evil poppin eye presst up to the opening
He’d slide shut the lil perforated hatch…at night mah body
Blusht
To the whistle of the birch
With a lil practice ah soon learnt to use in on mahself
Punishment?! Reward!! Punishment?! Reward!!
Well, ah tied on…percht on mah bed ah was…
Sticken a needle in mah arm…
Ah tied off! Fucken wings burst out mah back
(Like ah was cuttin teeth!!)
Ah took off!!!
(Rats in Paradise! Rats in Paradise!)
There’s a mutiny in Heaven!
Oh Lord, ah git down on mah knees
(Ah git down on mah knees and start to pray)
Wrapped in mah mongrel wings, ah nearly freeze
In the howlin wind and drivin rain
(All the trash blowin round ‘n’ round)
From slum-heaven into town
Ah take mah tiny pain and rollin back mah sleeve
(Roll anna roll anna roll anna roll)
Ah yank the drip outa mah vein! UTOPIATE! Ah’m bailin out!
UTOPIATE!
If this is Heaven ah’m bailin out!
Mah threadbare soul teems with vermin and louse
Thoughts come like a plague to the head…in God’s house!
Mutiny in Heaven!
(Ars infectio forco Dio)
To the plank!
(Rats in Paradise! Rats in Paradise!)
Ah’m bailin out!
(Hail Hypuss Dermio Vita Rex!)
Hole inna ghetto! Hole inna ghetto!
(Scabio Murem per Sanctum…Dio, Dio, Dio)
I slept 11 straight hours last night, and somewhere during the worst thunderstorm I can remember hearing in a long time, my fever broke and I awoke this morning to find that the cute little baby elephant who’s been sitting on my chest since Sunday night had departed.
I’m still having trouble breathing but that horrible weight in my lungs is gone.
However, before I collapse right back into bed again, I want to give you a few happy updates!
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds have posted the new dates for their UK & European Ghosteen tour! (And now that I know I will be in Zurich on June 3rd, 2021, this pretty much means that I can count on everything important in my professional life, in the US and Canada, being scheduled for June 3rd, 2021, as well!!)
Okay. I sure hope I’m kidding about that!
Also, Nick Cave sent out another Red Hand Files letter today, this one talks about the new, utterly amazing Dylan song, “Murder Most Foul.” (I’m still listening to it, gang. And when you consider that the song is 17 minutes long, it’s quite an investment of focus.)
An interesting thing about the song — I texted YouTube links for the song to all of my friends right when the song came out. Well, to the ones that I knew liked Bob Dylan. And Kara was the first one who texted me back about it, and she had the same first-response that I did. And she nailed it: “That violin…” she said.
I know. That violin. It sears right into you; it manages to both chill and awaken your heart. It’s incredible.
All right. I need to get back to bed, so I will post the sad news. John Prine had been struggling with COVID 19 since the end of March and he finally succumbed last night. He was definitely one of those people who had seriously complex underlying health issues, so I’m sad to say that I was not surprised he succumbed. Still, I wish he could have gone in a less horrible way.
John Prine’s songs were a huge part of the 70s and 80s for me, being that, at that point in my life, I was a country/folksinger-songwriter myself. And into the 90s, when I met Wayne and we got married, etc., Wayne was also a big John Prine fan. And Prine’s album, The Missing Years, was one of the cassettes (!!) we played relentlessly in the car when we drove cross-country on our honeymoon.
So I’ll leave you with 2 distinct types of John Prine songs. The bluegrass type that I feel he was best known for, and then a song from The Missing Years, that features Tom Petty, and is about James Dean, a movie star I totally love (and it also mentions my beloved Grandma’s first cousin, John Garfield!! ).
I’m gonna close now because I’m super tired, gang. Sorry for any typos. But thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!
“That’s The Way That The World Goes ‘Round”
I know a guy that’s got a lot to lose.
He’s a pretty nice fellow but he’s kind of confused.
He’s got muscles in his head that ain’t never been used.
Thinks he owns half of this town.
Starts drinking heavy, gets a big red nose.
Beats his old lady with a rubber hose,
Then he takes her out to dinner and buys her new clothes.
That’s the way that the world goes ’round.
That’s the way that the world goes ’round.
You’re up one day and the next you’re down.
It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown.
That’s the way that the world goes ’round.
I was sitting in the bathtub counting my toes,
When the radiator broke, water all froze.
I got stuck in the ice without my clothes,
Naked as the eyes of a clown.
I was crying ice cubes hoping I’d croak,
When the sun come through the window, the ice all broke.
I stood up and laughed thought it was a joke
That’s the way that the world goes ’round.
A young man from a small town
With a very large imagination
Lay alone in his room with his radio on
Looking for another station
When the static from the mouthpiece
Gave way to the sound below
James Dean went out to Hollywood
And put his picture in a Picture Show.
James Dean went out to Hollywood
And put his picture in a Picture Show.
[Chorus:]
And It’s Oh Daddy get off of your knees
Mamma why’d you have to go
Your darling Jim is out a limb
I put my picture in a Picture Show
Whoa Ho! Put my picture in a Picture Show
Hamburgers Cheeseburgers
Wilbur and Orville Wright
John Garfield in the afternoon
Montgomery Clift at night
When the static hit the mouthpiece
Gave way to the sound below
James Dean went out to Hollywood
And put his picture in a Picture Show.
[Chorus]
A Mocca man in a wigwam sitting on a Reservation.
With a big black hole in the belly of his soul
Waiting on an explanation
While the white man sits on his fat can
And takes pictures of the Navajo
Every time he clicks his Kodak pics
He steals a little bit of soul.
Every time he clicks his Kodak pics
He steals a little bit of soul.
[Chorus]
Yie Hi! Put my picture in a Picture Show
Here we go!
A young man from a small town
With a very large imagination…
Okay, so it is another beautiful day here today in Crazeysburg!! Yesterday was also really just lovely.
It helps so much, doesn’t it? Even while I like rain (and snow), there is something about this kind of sunny weather that promises that Summer will once again return — it is just the best feeling.
My friend Kevin called last evening. This is the Kevin who stores his vintage 1965 VW camper van in my barn all summer/fall. He lives in the town that is 20 miles from me, where I do my marketing.
Anyway, he’s in lockdown with his mom, so you can kind of guess where that’s going… He said that he goes out once a day to buy beer, and to get food for his mother.
HIM (very quietly indeed): “I’m losing my mind…”
But he pointed out that he probably won’t see me again until it’s time to store the camper in my barn — which is mid-May. Then he doesn’t come back from Montana until October. So weird. But it was really nice to chat with him. It perked up my little evening, which actually was going quite well, regardless.
On another topic — I just want to share a couple of sentences with you from Love in the Time of Cholera that just make me wish I could read the novel in its original Spanish and understand it!
(Here the old man briefly recalls his first days of loving the girl he loved, unrequited, for his entire life.)
… he could not distinguish her from the heartrending twilights of those times. Even when he observed her, unseen, during those days of longing when he waited for a reply to his first letter, he saw her transfigured in the afternoon shimmer of two o’clock in a shower of blossoms from the almond trees where it was always April regardless of the season of the year.
And then here, where his mother is once again trying to teach him how to behave towards this girl he loves from afar — the girl was still not answering his love letter, so he drank a bottle of his mother’s best cologne (which contains alcohol), and his mother found him at six in the morning, passed out down by the sea, in a pool of fragrant smelling vomit:
She took advantage of the hiatus of his convalescence to reproach him for his passivity as he waited for the answer to his letter. She reminded him that the weak would never enter the kingdom of love, which is a harsh and ungenerous kingdom…
I just love this kind of imagery. So intensely passionate, with humor tossed in around the edges.
(And I will concur that the kingdom of love is indeed a harsh and ungenerous kingdom…)
I also have to say — although I won’t quote from it, yet — that the book about Judas is really good, pointing out that in the earliest gospels, nothing whatsoever is said about Jesus being betrayed by Judas.
If you don’t follow the history of ancient Christianity — the gospels that came to be accepted as canonical (in the 4th century AD, hundreds of years after Jesus’s life & death), each reflect the politics of when they were written: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. (With a lost Gospel of Q being thought to have existed at the time of Mark, and also to have been similar to the Gospel of Thomas — which any good Christian treats as absolute heresy but which is, of course, my favorite gospel.)
Mark is the oldest accepted gospel, although it has an additional ending tacked on to it. It originally ended at 16:8. Wherein, the two Mary’s find an empty tomb and a young man in white, who tells them that Jesus has risen and will appear to Peter and the disciples in Galilee.
(I, personally, love how this earliest version of the gospel has Mary Magdalene and Jesus’s mother, Mary, as the only ones who go to his tomb. It’s not any of the men, and certainly not Peter – which also lends credence, based on Jewish custom that only a man’s wife and family can touch and prepare the corpse for burial. Anyway, it gives additional credence to the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, otherwise, she would not have been allowed to touch and prepare his naked corpse.) (Which was why the two women went to the tomb, but then found the tomb empty.)
Yeah, well. I digressed…. Sorry. You know, don’t get me started on the Jesus stuff because I just don’t stop!! Case in point, I love this stuff too (!!) :
Many archaeologists believe this was the house Jesus lived and taught in during his years in Capernaum.
It is sufficient to say, that I am enjoying the book that re-examines Judas. And it is a really appropriate book for me to be reading as Holy Week approaches.
So.
No — Abstract Absurdity Productions did not have its phone meeting yesterday. We might have it this morning, I don’t know yet. Peitor has a lot on his plate right now, regarding his family and the virus.
Tomorrow morning, I need to make my foray back into town and go to the market. The cases in that county are rapidly climbing (and Muskingum County, btw, now has 3 confirmed), and all over Ohio, in general, the confirmed cases are starting to peak. We are now at 3300 cases in the State. So I’m hoping my paranoia doesn’t go into high gear or anything tomorrow, because I really seriously need food.
(Although Ohio is nowhere near as bad as the “hotspots” in the US– i.e., Michigan is right next to Ohio and has over 10,000 confirmed cases to our 3300, and NYC is still just off-the-charts. Almost half of all virus cases in the entire country are located in the NY area — almost 67,000 people are confirmed to have the virus in NY, with half of those being right in the city itself. Which is why all I can think of to say right now to all of my loved ones there is “Please don’t go outside. Please wash your hands.”)
Anyway. I hate the day when I have to go into town, because so far, I am totally healthy. If only I didn’t need food….
Okay! Well, I’m going to try to not think about any of this stuff for at least the next few hours. I’m going to go get another cup of coffee, and hang out on my bed and read Love in the Time of Cholera some more. And enjoy this lovely day and see if Peitor ends up wanting to work at all.
I hope today finds you in a good place. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my listening-music from yesterday! A song that’s on B-Sides & Rarities, but from a movie I hadn’t thought about in probably a couple of decades until I went onto Instagram yesterday. (The 90s was a heavy-drinking decade for me, wherein I saw, literally, hundreds of movies, most of which I don’t remember.) Anyway, here is “(I’ll Love You) Till the End of the World” by the awesomely talented Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (from the Wim Wenders film, Until the End of the World, 1991, which I did see but cannot remember at all).
Okay. I love you guys. See ya.
“(I’ll Love You) Till the End of the World”
It was a miracle I even got outta Longwood alive
This town full of men with big mouths and no guts
I mean, if you can just picture it
The whole third floor of the hotel gutted by the blast
And the street below showered in shards of broken glass
And all the drunks pourin’ outta the dance halls
Starin’ up at the smoke and the flames
And the blind pencil seller wavin’ his stick
Shoutin’ for his dog that lay dead on the side of the road
And me, if you can believe this, at the wheel of the car
Closin’ my eyes and actually prayin’
Not to God above, but to you, sayin’
Help me, girl, help me, girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
With your eyes black as coal and your long dark curls
Some things we plan
We sit and we invent and we plot and cook up
Others are works of inspiration, of poetry
And it was this genius hand that pushed me up the hotel stairs
To say my last goodbye
To her hair white as snow and her pale blue eyes
Sayin’, “I gotta go, I gotta go
The bomb and the bread basket are ready to blow”
In this town of men with big mouths and no guts
The pencil seller’s dog, spooked by the explosion
And leapin’ under my wheels
As I careered outta Longwood on my way to you
Waitin in your dress, in your dress of blue, I said
Thank you girl, thank you girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
With your eyes black as coal and your long dark curls
And with the horses prancin’ through the fields
With my knife in my jeans and the rain on the shield
I sang a song for the glory of the beauty of you
Waitin’ for me in your dress of blue
Thank you, girl, thank you, girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
With your eyes black as coal and your long dark curls
I said thank you, girl, thank you, girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
With your eyes black as coal and your long dark curls
I said thank you, girl, thank you, girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
With your eyes black as coal and your long dark curls
I said thank you, girl, thank you, girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
With your eyes black as coal and your long dark curls
Thank you, girl, thank you, girl
I’ll love you till the end of the world
With your eyes black as coal and your long dark curls
Yes!! I went out first thing this morning — drove into town to go to the market as soon as it opened, so that I could get my week’s groceries without having to shop with too many people in the store.
(Ohio is on Stay-At-Home orders, which means we can go out for essentials but that’s it.)
And when I got back home, this time I paid attention to everything I touched before I washed my hands, so that I didn’t go through some sort of paranoia attack all day about whether or not I had washed every single solitary thing that might need washing…
And I’m hoping to do only one load of laundry today — instead of worrying that I didn’t get every single thing that my clothing might have touched when I came in the door.
In short, I hope to have a nice day.
The weather here is unbelievable!! We did not get all the rain that was predicted — which is good because Wakatamika Creek has already become a veritable lake, flowing all over the bottom land. (It doesn’t affect the town, because the creek always floods and that bottom land always eventually absorbs it. In the nearly 200 years the town has been here, I guess they figured out not to build anything at all anywhere near that creek…)
Anyway. It is gorgeous outside. Most of the windows are open, which is such a relief for me, because I am allergic to cats and I have 7, so fresh air is just like the best thing that God invented, ever.
I am on Day 15 now of my quarantine. We still have no confirmed cases of the virus in Muskingum County — and here is something that actually pisses me off: Ohio has stopped reporting how many people test negative for the virus. The last time they reported the number, several days ago, it was close to 20,000 people who didn’t have it. They only report now how many people have it and how many people have died from it. Which just totally skews everybody’s understanding of what is going on.
And when questioned why they stopped releasing the numbers, they let it be known that the nearly 20,000 who didn’t have it, did not even include the amount of negatives coming from the private testing sector. The State itself (not the private sector) is testing 500 people a day! And 1400 people have tested positive (that includes those who have recovered and 28 who have died). So who knows how many tens of thousands of people in Ohio don’t have the virus?
It just feels so manipulative and political, doesn’t it? (If you don’t live in America, you probably can’t get a real sense of how many politicians want to blame Trump for absolutely everything imaginable, even if it means having to “misrepresent” or downplay the facts. It just gets ludicrous.)
The Health Department here in Ohio also seems to be relying on a forecasting formula that the Federal Government has stated is outdated now because the forecasts did not match what is actually happening in Italy. It just feels so controlling — try to make everyone feel hysterical so that they no longer trust the Federal Government.
It is just so hard to know what the heck is going on anymore, so it’s still best to just stay inside and wash.
And speaking of Italy — that Instagram photo I posted last evening (lower left of this page if you’re on a computer) is of Pope Francis giving the Urbi et Orbi blessing in a deserted St. Peter’s Square last night. Isn’t that one of the most amazing sights?
And speaking of the Pope… I spent yesterday catching up on some back issues of Biblical Archaeology Review (which has nothing to do with the Pope, just the Bible). What a cool magazine. But so hard to spell!! (I’m guessing that the next Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album will have both the words “Archaeology” and “Apocalypse” in it so that I can go out of my fucking mind trying to spell it…) (See various references to my inability to spell the word “Apocalypse” as well as the 2004 double-album title Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.)
I love Biblical archaeology. I love the stuff they discover, and how it helps us re-frame what was handed down in the Bible (for instance, before contemporary times, women had a very different way of interpreting what is written about Eve in Genesis because they relied primarily on Genesis 1 and let that inform how they interpreted Genesis 3 — meaning, in short, they believed that Eve was the spiritual equal of Adam and also that Adam was standing right next to Eve during that whole serpent thing, so, um …) (Also, the King James Version of the Bible misinterpreted the word for “pupil” to mean “apple” so the saying “apple of his eye” actually reads “pupil of his eye.” I just love stuff like that!)
And I especially love it when archaeology supports what is written in the Bible. I love all that ancient historical stuff. Oh — and I ordered a scholarly book from Amazon yesterday that’s a couple years old already, but it re-examines Judas’s role in what happened to Jesus, along with the role of the Jewish High Priests, and it apparently redirects the blame to Herod. That the High Priests were providing shelter to Jesus from the Romans during Passover, and that Herod intercepted that.
(Folks, you really, really gotta closely examine that relationship between Herod and Jesus at every turn. Something really, really bad was going on there. We’ll probably never really know what. But it has something to do (I think) with the Romans having appointed Herod King, when that was not the way the Hebrews accepted a “King.” And all the John the Baptist stuff is connected there, too.)
This all fascinates me, personally, because I am working on a one-man play (titled In the Days of the Flesh) about the (fictional) Gospel According to Caiaphas, which exonerates him from what happened to Jesus.
And here we are today! I’m gonna go eat my lunch now and get this day underway. (And, btw, the market was completely stocked with absolutely everything.) I hope you are having a good Sunday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting!! (Oh, and another by the way!! Dylan’s new song, “Murder Most Foul,” already has 2 million views on YouTube — and that’s not counting my endless listenings because I bought the song immediately, so I stream it.)
I’ll leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning, “Casa Dega,” which I only listened to halfway, because the windows were open and I realized that the birds were singing and I preferred listening to them!! But anyway, this is not the version I listened to, but I like this one because it captures Tom Petty live in 1978, when he still had that awesome attitude he had when he was young. (He’s 28 here.) Enjoy, gang!! I love you guys. See ya.
“Casa Dega”
Well the clouds roll by in the big blue sky
As the sun beats down on Casa Dega
And the moon pulls the tide and the tide brings night
But night is more than just night in Casa Dega
Oh
Baby I think I’m starting to believe the things that I’ve heard
‘Cause tonight in Casa Dega I hang on every word
She said to me as she holds my hand
And reads the lines of a stranger
Yeah, and she knows my name, yeah she knows my plans
In the past, in the present and for the future
Yeah, baby now I think I’m starting to believe the things that I’ve heard
‘Cause tonight in Casa Dega I hang on every word
Then she said…
Oh
And you almost pay the price of a whisper in the night in Casa Dega
Time rolls by, night is only night, can I save ya?
Yeah, yeah
Alright
It’s more than just a night
Alright
Yeah, yeah
I am definitely not a germ-o-phobe by any stretch, but this virus is starting to push the limits of my non-germ-o-phobia, that’s for sure.
I did three teeny-tiny loads of laundry yesterday, only because I kept wondering which clothes the clothes I was wearing might have touched or brushed up against, even by accident, when I came in from my big trip to town yesterday. (If you’re using google translate, good luck with that paragraph.)
And then I kept washing my hands — did I touch that when I came in? Oh, but now I’ve touched it for sure, should I wash my hands again? Better safe than sorry.
And then: Is my throat sore? Am I getting a sore throat or does my throat always feel like this? I seem fine but my throat feels like it might be getting sore…
All fucking day. I did manage to keep it from getting out of hand, but still. Just that one quick trip into town to go to the market and my mind started to unravel.
Luckily, I am only going to have to make one trip into town each week.
Here’s something I’m going to tell my dad today and I’m sure he’ll be pleased as punch to hear it: the World Health Organization has issued a recommendation that people not listen to the news more than twice a day. I’m sure he’ll point out that he only turns the news on once and then turns it off, however, in the middle of that is the entire day.
Anyway, I’ll give it a shot and we’ll see how it goes.
I did have sort of a rough evening last night. I watched the second half of Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse (BBC, 2019) and I saw why people gave it such bad reviews. I still enjoyed it overall, but the second half had a lot more violence in it, and the ending was so rushed it was almost incomprehensible. It would have benefited from being a 3-part show instead of a 2-part show. And I wound up feeling like the original version the BBC did probably about 15 years ago or so was a lot better, even though it veered widely from the original story.
Then I switched over to the reruns of DCI Banks and, oh my god, the episode that started streaming automatically started out so bloody and creepy and then turned out to be all about rape. Which you can guess, I just enjoy the hell out of. (And it isn’t so much the actual rape stuff that bothers me, it’s the fact that everyone cares so much that the rape happened and they all need to band together to get the rapes to stop because it is just so terrible and it’s enraging everyone; whereas in my own experience, no one at all cared in the slightest bit that I had been raped — and more than once. Culturally, nobody gave a shit about rape back then. That’s the part that is hard for me to handle, even after all these decades.)
I finally made myself turn it off, but I was only 20 minutes from the end of the show. So I had sat there for quite a while last evening (nearly 3 hours), creeping myself out and wondering the whole time: is my throat getting sore?
But I slept great and I am very happy today, and my throat is absolutely not sore and I’m not stressing about anything at all. I’m planning to get some good work done on In the Shadow of Narcissa today, too.
Oh, plus, I forgot to thank whoever that was on Saturday night who downloaded a free copy of Twilight of the Immortal!!!! That was really nice to see. Thank you.
I’m not going to keep posting all the numbers re: the pandemic, but I will say that over 100,000 people have now recovered from the virus, and overall, we are still holding at 95% of the active cases worldwide being mild. So, you know, keep washing, but it’s in the process of moving through. Never lose sight of that.
I thought you might like to see a photo of the inside of my refrigerator. I had my phone with me at the kitchen table this morning and when I opened my fridge, it was almost too much. it’s just so fucking healthy, who the hell wants to eat anymore?
Inside my boring fridge!!
Okay. On that lofty note!
I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning! Thanks for visiting, gang, and have a wonderful Monday, wherever you are in the world! Try not to get stressed. Stay focused on the miracle of the human body, and on the undercurrent of love that runs throughout our very beingness; let it all work its unfathomable miracles in this crucial time, okay? I love you guys. See ya!
Well, Spring starts tomorrow! That’s really good news, right?
What I love about the seasons, gang, is how reliable they are. They always come back around. I love that the sun comes up each day, too, and that the moon goes through its phases each month “like clockwork,” and the ocean waves keep coming back to the shore.
These are all things to think about right now. And also that everything passes through, moves on, transforms.
As we’d feared, though, Nick Cave finally came to the decision to postpone the start of the European Ghosteen tour. He announced it today on the Nick Cave web site, and also in his Red Hand Files letter this morning. (I’m guessing his server crashed from all the responses he got to that announcement, though! I sent a response and his server told me “too many comments, slow down” or something like that.)
Also, things to keep in the mix as you hang out, like me, in your isolation and/or quarantine, the world over right now (meaning March 19, 2020), there are over 137,000 known cases of the virus but over 123, 000 of those are mild. Close to 86,000 people have now recovered. China now has more recoveries than people who are sick with the virus, and the professional show business news outlets, expect movie theaters in China to be open again by the end of March (about 2 weeks away).
So, like all other viruses and epidemics, it comes and passes through. And we adjust to all of it. The UK news outlets yesterday carried the story of Dr. Dongchen Wu of the Wuhan area of China who has cured 9 elderly patients now of Covid 19 by use of stem cell injections.
Assuming this is accurate news, it gives us reason to hope that by the next “flu season” there could be a cure or vaccine for this. There are good reasons to balance the stress and difficulties of “right now” with these other ideas.
As illustrated by China right now, the virus comes in, balloons, subsides. It doesn’t just come and stay eternally.
Also, at least here in America, people get really angry when you compare the Covid 19 virus with the regular “flu,” because we allegedly “know” what the flu is and what it’s doing, but it seems evident that just this season alone, between 22,000 – 55,000 Americans have died from the flu. And between 370,000 – 670,000 were actually hospitalized because of it. So we still don’t have a grip on the flu by any stretch, but we have managed to find a way to still live our lives in the wake of it, every single year. (The stats come from the Center of Disease Control.)
These are just things to think about in the midst of everything bombarding us on the national news. There is always the reality of
“right now” alongside the reality of change.
Meanwhile, here in Muskingum County, no outbreaks yet. We still have toilet paper, Kleenex, paper towels. We still have food. We still have gasoline at $1.83 per gallon.(Which could be an indication that I’m actually dead now and living in the afterlife, which, in that case, means you should disregard everything I’ve just written above!!)
If you follow me on Instagram (whether from the afterlife or from Earth), you saw that I actually ventured out and got a pizza last evening! I have never done that in the 2 years I’ve lived in Crazeysburg. I love pizza but I don’t eat it too often because in this part of the country, it simply doesn’t compare to the pizza you can get in NYC. Sorry to have to say that, but, alas, it is true.
But I was really hungry and I’d been stuck inside alone for about 96 hours straight already (not exaggerating on that, gang) and I thought, not only would pizza be great, but it would also support the one & only restaurant here in Crazeysburg. (You can only get take-out in Ohio now; there’s a Governor’s mandate right now that no one can congregate in bars or restaurants, so all those establishments are really hurting financially.)
So I went out and got a pizza!! Yay. (Cheese, onions and green olives. Is that weird? I really like green olives on my pizzas. I’m not sure why.) It was indeed weird, though, inside the place because of course the women who work at the pizzeria aren’t allowed to get anywhere near you. (Oh, we also have plenty of hand sanitizer here, too.) So, you know, you walk in the door of the pizzeria, which is entirely empty of other customers, and all the staff members immediately move very far away from you. You feel like Covid 19 walking.
But at least I got out of the house. For about 9 minutes. And I ate something besides organic oranges, tomatoes, baby spinach, arugula, Greek yogurt, berries, granola, non-organic dark chocolate, and Neapolitan ice cream… (If you study that list, you’ll see that it’s reasonably healthy but fucking boring for 96 hours straight!)
Okay, well. Today is Booty Core and hair-washing, and sitting at the desk and writing something!! (And eating the stuff on that list that I’ve just regaled you with, but now add cold, leftover pizza…) It could be so much worse. I count my many blessings every day, gang. I’m guessing that you do, too.
Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a good Thursday, wherever it finds you in this big, beautiful world! We’ll say goodbye to Nick Cave and his fellow Bad Seeds for now but not forever! I love you guys. See ya.
“We’ll Meet Again”
We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,
Don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through,
Just like you always do
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away
So will you please say “Hello”
To the folks that I know
Tell them I won’t be long
They’ll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing this song
We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,
Don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day
We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where
Don’t know when.
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day.
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do,
‘Til the blue skies
Drive the dark clouds far away
So will you please say “Hello”
To the folks that I know.
Tell them I won’t be long.
They’ll be happy to know
That as you saw me go,
I was singin’ this song.
We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,
Don’t know when
But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day
Well, the Governor of this lofty State, as of last evening, mandated that all gathering places such as bars and restaurants all over Ohio are to be closed down, as he attempts to force stubborn people to stay home.
This means that me and my beloved Granville Inn — my home away from home, 25 miles from here — must part company for a while.
(Yes, I confess — I was there Saturday night with tons of other people and no less than 6 flat screen TVs, with the sound off, giving moment-by-moment updates of the National Emergency and the world-wide pandemic.)(To be fair, though, I was super paranoid about not touching my face and I washed my hands a lot…)
So, anyway, now I’m home for the duration. And instead of sitting at my desk and working almost all of the time, I am now going to sit at my desk and work all the time.
After I got word of the Governor’s mandate last evening, I figured I’d better force myself to drive into the other town (19 miles away) to get the upcoming week’s groceries. Just get it over with and then force myself to stay at home. (Although tomorrow is voting day and I can’t imagine not voting…)
I was bracing myself for a catastrophe inside the market — I had heard already that all the big super market chains had empty shelves and were out of food. However, the little market I shop at — that has tons of organic produce, etc. — still had plenty of food. And none of the shoppers there appeared to be in the throes of hoarding stuff.
The store was only out of 2 things that I normally buy (and I thought it was interesting that they were out of these specific items in this pandemic of shopping mania): the specific dark chocolate I like — and so I was forced to buy a type of dark chocolate that comes from Austria, instead, and that actually tastes better than what I usually buy and is indescribably delicious (meaning, it contains more sugar and less cocoa), so I’m going to be forced to eat delicious chocolate this week. And they were out of the organic pomegranate juice that I buy. Instead, I had to buy organic pomegranate juice that is blended with organic tart cherry and red grape juices (which, of course, tastes better than the pure stuff — but I drink the pure stuff for post-menopausal hormonal reasons, not because I like it). But, clearly, a lot of suffering is underway here…
And then, on the way back into Crazeysburg, I stopped at the dollar store to buy more tea tree essential oil and 25 pounds of cat litter, both of which they had plenty of (I have tried to warn you that my life is just super glamorous, gang), and then I thought — in a sort of somewhat hoarding sort of vein — that maybe I should just buy another carton of Breyer’s all natural vanilla bean ice cream — you know, in case I need to ponder excessively during the crack down and run out of the 1 and a 1/2 cartons I already have in my freezer. And to my dismay, I discovered that apparently everyone in Crazeysburg shares my taste in ice cream because they were all out of only that flavor. (I bought Breyer’s Neapolitan as my back-up instead.)
But I found that just so funny, you know? In the midst of all this utterly insane stupefyingly crazy shopping stuff that’s going on all over America now, the only things I couldn’t obtain were organic Pomegranate juice, high-cocoa-content dark chocolate, and boring Breyer’s all natural vanilla bean ice cream.
This means that there are people out here in the Hinterlands who are exactly like me and yet I don’t know a single one of them!
Well, the update on the web work for Abstract Absurdity Productions got even more bizarre. I did hear back from one of the “Happiness Engineers” yesterday (far short of the 24-48 hour estimated time frame) and she took care of the problem that I was having at WordPress, and then I was able to go back over to GoDaddy and discover that the problem they had allegedly fixed for me there on Saturday was now even worse. So, an hour and a half on the phone with tech support took care of that problem (for real, this time). And I was able to go back to my “Happiness Engineer” at WordPress and finish up everything there.
And then she happily informed me that we were all good to go and that within 5 to 7 days, I could complete the site set up.
Oh my god. You know? In case you can’t do the math on that, that’s, like, an entire week. I mean, the whole world has shut down, so it’s not like there’s any rush or anything, but it just boggles my mind.
Plus, it’s embarrassing to have to keep giving Peitor these ridiculous updates every day because I know that he must be privately thinking that I don’t really know how to set up a web site and that it’s just my foolish pride that’s preventing me from admitting it.
Well, anyway. I have a full tank of gas in my car that only cost me $1.83 per gallon. And I have all my groceries, and all the cat food and cat litter we need around here, and plenty of ice cream to try to mend my broken heart with — and I have absolutely no place to go and no web work that I can do. So I’m guessing I’ll get a lot of my own writing done this week.
We can only hope. Although my phone informed me yesterday that I’m spending way too much time on Instagram now. I usually have about 3 hours of screen time on my phone each week, but yesterday, my phone informed me that last week, I had 19 hours of screen time!! Jesus Christ. That is just stupid. I gotta stop. It only leads to heartache anyway. (For instance, I used to love that song “Love Letter” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and now I never want to hear it again, ever, as long as I live, ever, and even beyond forever, because of something I scrolled my way on to on Instagram a few dawns ago. Stupid stuff like that.)
Okay. I guess I’ll get started here. Have a good Monday, wherever you are in this pandemic-filled world. Find something peaceful to contemplate. Find something to follow that leads you in the direction of joy. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my little soundtrack to have your heart broken by, as we barrel ever-onward towards Spring. I love you guys. See ya!
“Swinging Doors”
This old smoke-filled bar is something I’m not used to
But I gave up my home to see you satisfied
And I just called to let you know where I’ll be living
It’s not much but I feel welcome here inside
And I’ve got swinging doors a jukebox and a bar stool
And my new home has a flashing neon sign
Stop by and see me anytime you want to
Cause I’m always here at home till closing time
I’ve got everything I need to drive me crazy
I’ve got everything it takes to lose my mind
And in here the atmosphere’s just right for heartaches
And thanks to you I’m always here till closing time
And I’ve got swinging doors a jukebox and a bar stool
And my new home has a flashing neon sign
Stop by and see me anytime you want to
Cause I’m always here at home till closing time
That Fluffy, my wonderful, goofy, intensely loving little stray cat, was alive again. And frisky and fluffy as anything you ever saw. She was scampering all over my living room. (That’s her, pictured above.)
She had been in a nursing home (of all things) because she was ill and dying (in real life, she died at home in my bed, from cancer, back in September 2016, and then, sadly, Bunny had a heart attack and died only a month later).
In the dream, I went to get Fluffy from the nursing home and she was no longer sick. In fact, she was getting ready to have kittens!
(In real life, when she first decided to come live with Mikey Rivera and me, she was still very young, starving, ill with pneumonia, infested with fleas, and pregnant with kittens. We took her in and took her to a vet, who assured me that Fluffy wouldn’t survive. I decided otherwise. I had the kittens aborted and kept her in quarantine for a very long time. And she lived to be 10 years old.)
This time, in my dream, Fluffy was obviously so healthy and full of life that I knew she and the kittens would live and I was so excited that, soon, I would have kittens scampering all over the house again. And I knew I was going to keep every one of them.
So. Well. I’m having a bit of a broken heart here this morning, I’m not going to go into why. But I felt that the dream was encouraging. I don’t really know how to interpret it, but it just made me feel hopeful. About the power of life, I guess.
Well, at this point maybe it won’t surprise you (it sort of surprised me, though, I have to say), that Peitor continued all day yesterday to tinker with that new logo for Abstract Absurdity Productions. He did some amazing work on it. But each time I thought that it was great, he tinkered some more and it was even more amazing.
However, he sent me so many versions of the logo in texts yesterday, that now I can no longer tell which one I like better or why. We are working on the phone today, so I’m guessing we’ll be going over that and choosing one. (I hope.)
I woke up this morning and suddenly recalled how meticulous he is — a true perfectionist. And I suddenly had a vision of perhaps being in a film editing studio with him, editing one of our future 45-second movies, and perhaps tearing my hair out…
ME (to him): “I thought that was real good.”
HIM (to the film editor): “Obviously I still need to study this. Let me see that one frame again.”
ME (thinking): oh no…
Then:
ME, CONT’D (17 million hours later): “Oh my god, Peitor — that’s fantastic.”
HIM: “I know.”
BOTH OF US (accepting our Academy Award for Best Short Subject Film of the Year):
ME (wondering where Nick Cave is and what color suit he’s wearing): Silently staring at audience.
HIM (holding the actual Oscar): “…each element and perspective, and placement for not only aesthetic but also thesis…”
All righty!! Of course, I am 100% not kidding!!
However, let me tell you a couple of things. Quite a few music Divas from the 1970s saw their careers land back to the top of the Billboard Dance charts 30-40 years later, after hiring Peitor to write songs and produce for them.
And I remember, vividly, a time I was staying with him in LA — when he had this really lovely garden townhouse on N. Fairfax off of Sunset Blvd. I was in LA promoting Neptune & Surf because it had just come out (this is over 20 years ago). And I was up in the guest room, just killing time because Peitor was under a really tight deadline to compose a 60-second piece of music for some sort of Simpson’s movie. (Yes, the animated Simpsons.) He was at that piece for hours. And I could hear him at his keyboard the entire time. And he was going over & over & over one certain refrain. And I mean, for hours he was doing this — one section from a 60-second piece of music.
And then finally a messenger came to pick up the tape. And finally Peitor and I went out to dinner. And when we came home, another messenger had come by to slip an envelope under Peitor’s door and in it was a check for $36,000. For that 60-second piece of music.
‘Nuff said. So. If he wants to tweak that logo 17 million times, I say, “let him!!”
Okay!!
Nick Cave sent out a really beautiful Red Hand Files letter thing this morning. Pertaining to the Bible, and to Mary Magdalene, specifically. It meant a lot to me, what he said. You can read it at that link there if you so choose!!
I need to scoot because I have stuff to get to before Peitor calls. I hope you enjoy your Friday, wherever you are in the world. And just remember that love is beautiful, no matter what, so just be brave, okay? I leave you with two things today. A song from the 2013 album, Push the Sky Away, by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. (The cool lyrics-in-progress are in the video). And then also my breakfast-listening music from this morning: the titular song, “Graceland,” from Paul Simon’s 1986 Grammy winning album-of-the-year, Graceland.
I love you guys. See ya.
“Graceland”
The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war
I’m going to Graceland
Graceland
In Memphis Tennessee
I’m going to Graceland
Poor boys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland
My traveling companion is nine years old
He is the child of my first marriage
But I’ve reason to believe
We both will be received
In Graceland
She comes back to tell me she’s gone
As if I didn’t know that
As if I didn’t know my own bed
As if I’d never noticed
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead
And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow
I’m going to Graceland
Memphis Tennessee
I’m going to Graceland
Poor boys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland
And my traveling companions
Are ghosts and empty sockets
I’m looking at ghosts and empties
But I’ve reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland
There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I’m falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Oh, so this is what she means
She means we’re bouncing into Graceland
And I see losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody feels the wind blow
In Graceland, in Graceland
I’m going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain
There’s some part of me wants to see
Graceland
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there’s no obligations now
Maybe I’ve a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland
Until that French gal’s shadow puppet caught my eye, I was actually going to lead with a cute little image like this because it’s raining here today:
But shadow puppets are just so much better, right, gang??!!
Right!!
Okay, so guess what?
Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that toward the end of 2019 and into the beginning of 2020, I was hard at work, fixing that character arc for the supporting female character in my play, Tell My Bones. And that once I finally nailed it — adding a new song and some Jim Crow themes about lynchings and slave auctions — I had a distinct impression that Sandra was going to switch gears (after all these years of my adapting this play for her) and want to play the supporting role instead of the lead role.
I knew that the new material for that supporting role had become just a real standout kind of thing.
So last night, here comes a text from the director of the play. He’d gotten a phone call from Sandra, who’s in rehearsals for something else right now up in Stratford, Canada, and she’s read the new version of the play now and she said that she wants that supporting role.
Obviously, I’m not surprised. And I’m not upset or anything at all like that. Just sort of interesting what happened with that supporting character, isn’t it?
For Sandra to go from a lead role, that also means being at the helm of 6 songs, to a supporting role with only one song. That’s kind of a strong statement, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the Coronavirus might delay the table-read in NYC in April. I’m still waiting to hear. (And I’m of course still wondering about that Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds tour that starts in Europe next month. As most of Italy tries to go on lock-down. And I saw this morning that Coachella is maybe going to postpone itself until the fall. I guess we’ll just see.) (I also saw that someone I follow on Instagram & on WordPress, posted that Coachella should postpone itself until it stops sucking.) (rrreow!!!)
Too funny. Okay.
Anyway. Back to me!
Today is all about Abstract Absurdity Productions. Again. It’s insane, how often it comes around now. (My idea, of course, to meet more frequently.) (My idea to start the whole darn production company…) And that handy schedule I created for getting that web site launched by April 1st is not exactly my friend. Every so often, I stop and wonder: Hmmm. Web site –shit! I gotta launch that thing in a couple of weeks! I still have no fucking clue what I’m doing!
So that’s cool. God knows I need more stress in my life. Every damn day. I am trying, though, gang. You know, to stay on top of things. (And to stop suggesting new things.)
If I hear myself say one more time, “You know what I was thinking?” I’m going to scream. Enough thinking already, Marilyn. Jesus. Just stop.
Well, the weather has been inching its way into Spring here. Last night, I slept with one of my bedroom windows open just a crack. And then all these little cat faces kept trying to press their little noses into that space and get some real air. Finally. After 6 months of having all the windows totally closed.
And I’ve been able to lower the heat a couple degrees, too.
Oh, and even though I still have the flannel sheets and two blankets on the bed, I slept in my little black chemise again last night!! I got super tired of looking at the Christmas PJs when I woke up in the morning. They just had to go. Winter is over & done and Spring is as good as here!
And next week — yay!! Cat birthdays all around!! Huckleberry and Tommy turn 8, and everyone else turns 7. (Except me, of course — I’ll still be 12.) (Wow, soon enough my cats are going to be older than me. That’s going to be so weird!)
Happy pre- birthday to my many cats!!
[Sad UPDATE: My sweet little boy cat, Weenie — my last remaining male cat — is showing signs of kidney problems. The same thing his daddy died from last Spring. No more treats for this little guy.]
All righty. I’m going to finish up the laundry here and then get started on Thug Luckless until it’s time to work with Peitor on the final scene of “Lita måste gå!” (aka “Lita’s Got to Go!”). Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I have nothing to leave you with today because I am still listening to “The Boy in the Bubble” and “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart.” So, instead, I’ll just leave you with this: a tender nursery rhyme from somebody’s wee bonny girlhood (not mine, for a change)! Enjoy it, regardless. I love you guys. See ya!!
Marilyn's Room 