Tag Archives: Nick Cave

My God, People! Yesterday Was Intense!!

September 3, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

First of all, continuing in the happy theme of my post here last night, The Guitar Hero Goes Home is now available everywhere! As an eBook, on Kindle, and as a trade paperback !!!!!

[UPDATE: I have removed the eBook from Smashwords.]

Yay!! Kindle is $2.99, and the paperback is $9.95

Here are the links:

Trade paperback via Amazon: The Guitar Hero Goes Home

Kindle eBook: The Guitar Hero Goes Home

My test proof for the print edition doesn’t arrive until tomorrow, but I already saw an online proof and I know I’m not going to make any changes, so the fact that it is already for sale is fine.

There are only 2 things that really bother me, that I could not change — the page numbering — where Page 1 begins on the Copyright page. And then the pages that set off the different sections — i.e., Part I, Part II, Part III, etc. — I could not give those their own, stand alone pages. Traditionally, they should appear on the right hand side of the book, with nothing printed on the back of the page. But they wouldn’t allow me to have any blank pages. So I find the formatting weird, but it can’t be changed and it won’t keep me from selling the book.

So it’s ready!!!!

In other brief news — I think I may have a publisher for “Half-Moon Bride”, even as a stand alone short story. I don’t know for sure yet, but I will keep you posted! And if it works out, then it could be likely that all my new hardcore D/s erotica that pushes the boundary of “questionable consent” could have a new home.

After yesterday’s seemingly endless nightmare, just trying to get the fucking eBook published for The Guitar Hero Goes Home, I would be happy to focus on writing as much as I can, and less on publishing when at all possible.

I have not formatted an ePub doc for eBook publishing since upgrading to the Windows 10 laptop. And the upgrade made all my old style-guides for creating ePub docs 100% obsolete.

So, what used to be something I could do almost on automatic, became something I had to learn all over again.

I was not at all in the mood for that yesterday, gang. I was having a seriously not happy day. And almost every single thing I needed to do to format that stupid ePub file got fucked up, and I spent hours sitting here at my desk, pretty much saying “Are you fucking kidding me??!!” every 5 minutes… I had to keep starting over, and starting over, and starting over.

Eventually, I took a piece of a piece of a piece of a Tylenol PM, so that I could at least calm down without actually going to sleep. And I started yet again, and finally figured out what the fuck I was supposed to do to get everything to work right. And at long last, it did.

And so it “went to press” as it were! And since it is not an erotic title, but merely “adult”, it means I did not have to go through the outraging insanity of having the Amazon keyword machine reject the entire manuscript based on a keyword it detected as objectionable yet without enlightening me to what taboo words were triggering the rejection.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that this happened to me when I published The Muse Revisited, Vol.1 (on both Amazon and Smashwords back in 2012, or whenever it was), but Amazon rejected the manuscript without telling me why.

I eventually discovered, through endless and annoying trials and errors, that the thing that was triggering the rejection was in my short story “Muriel the Magnificent.” When Muriel is 7 years old, she gets a spanking from her dad, with her pants down– and the scene is not erotic at all. In fact, it’s the key scene of the whole story — it sets up Muriel as an adult, who is unable to feel erotic about her own body. And she finally learns how to open up by accidentally seeing porn on the Internet.

This was back when the Internet was still brand new. And the story was written expressly for a British compilation at Hodder- Stoughton, The New English Library Book of Internet Stories (a non-erotic collection — mine was the only erotic story in there, but it was included because the story was good). And the story was indeed a huge hit. It got picked up as one of the best erotic stories of that year. And by the time I was trying to publish the eBook of The Muse Revisited, Vol.1 on Amazon, “Muriel the Magnificent” had already been picked up for publication in a few other collections, in the US and overseas — all of which were on sale on Amazon and had been on sale on Amazon for several years.

But since eBooks at Amazon are judged by keyword machines and not human editors, and since my eBook was labeled as “erotica,” a 7 year-old girl simply can’t get spanked by her dad with her pants down, regardless of the context. So they spit back the entire book. And kept spitting it back, and kept spitting it back, until I finally figured out what the problem was, and as much as I hated to do it, I had to completely censor that key scene in order to get the book published. (So, yes, if you only know that story from The Muse Revisited collection, you’ve read a censored version of the story.)

Anyway, that’s annoying as hell, but it didn’t happen this time. Yay.

So — The Guitar Hero Goes Home is at long last published. I hope you’ll read it. There is sex in there, gang!! But … alas, not a lot (although there is a really cool spanking scene in it!!) Perhaps that will entice you… (Although it’s between 2 adults and… alas, it is not eroticized. It’s in fact one of those spankings that you don’t want to get…)

But anyway. I’m very happy and I can’t wait to get my test proof of it tomorrow. To hold it in my hot little hands.

And I’m glad that at least the next 2 publishing projects are not going to require ePub files!! They are strictly POD. Thank God.

Well!! In case you were really busy doing something on July 23rd and weren’t able to catch Nick Cave’s solo concert on Dice — Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace — the Nick Cave website announced this morning that there will be a theatrical release of the concert, starting November 5th, and that there is also an album coming — vinyl, CD, and streaming — November 20th. All the details are here.

I have to say that every time I see the title of that show, I always think it says Nick Cave Alone at “Berlin Alexanderplatz” — which was this amazing TV miniseries from Germany, back in 1980, adapted from a German novel of the same name about Berlin as it gradually falls under Nazi influence. It was directed by Fassbinder. I think you can probably stream it online — and you should, if you can. It was really, really good. However, Nick Cave is not in it, alone or otherwise. (But that should not deter you from broadening your intellectual horizons.)

Well, all righty!!! I need to get started here today. I haven’t done my yoga yet — I guess I’m still in the mindset of rejecting routines. But I do want to do it since I didn’t do yoga yesterday. And then I need to finally finish “Half-Moon Bride.” Which means we need to have copious amounts of anal sex! Well, the characters do, at any rate. (However, if you’re feeling like your own day needs to move in that direction as well, far be it from me to attempt to dissuade you!!)

To be honest, my life is a little challenging right now, for reasons that I don’t want to post about, so to spend the rest of the day, sitting at my desk, encouraging our 2 love birds to have copious amounts of anal sex, as their wedding night wanes and before the sun comes up and our half-moon bride loses her erection for an entire 30 days… Well, that to me, sounds like a really great way to spend the day.

I hope Thursday is as good to you, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting, gang. My breakfast-listening music today was once again from Tom Petty & the Heartbreaker’s Live Anthology (2009). This time, “Square One,” recorded live in Missouri, June 17th, 2006. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a song that gives me a lot of hope. I know, somehow, I’m going to get to a good place. Okay, I love you guys. See ya.

“Square One”

Had to find some higher ground.
Had some fear to get around.
You can say what you don’t know.
Later on won’t work no more.

Last time through I hid my tracks.
So well I could not get back.
Yeah my way was hard to find.
Can’t sell your soul for peace of mind.

Square one, my slate is clear.
Rest your head on me my dear.
It took a world of trouble, took a world of tears.
It took a long time to get back here.

Tried so hard to stand alone.
Struggled to see past my nose.
Always had more dogs than bones.
I could never wear those clothes.

It’s a dark victory.
You won and you are so lost.
Told us you were satisfied,
but it never came across.

Square one, my slate is clear.
Rest your head on me my dear.
It took a world of trouble, took a world of tears.
It took a long time to get back here.

Another New Adventure in Pussyland!!

September 1, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Oh jeez, people — you know?

No, I’m still not done with the new erotic short story, but we’re getting there. Yesterday was all about spending 7 hours streamlining a page and a half of text down to one and a half paragraphs.

That kind of thing — it takes forever, it taxes the brain, but it is really worth it once it’s done. But that kind of focusing takes a lot out of me, and while it’s going on, I have to battle with the feeling that the whole story is insane and why am I even writing it?

That kind of unproductive thinking leads nowhere productive.

But “Half-Moon Bride” is just one of those stories that I rarely write , wherein the sole reason it exists is to be erotic. There is only the flimsiest story arc (a wedding night). And the alleged character arc only serves as the vehicle to tell the flimsy story — we have the half-moon bride herself, who is the “female” hermaphrodite because she only grows her male appendage (minus any testicles) on the full moon (a half-moon futanari). Otherwise, she’s entirely female.

Whereas the “male” hermaphrodite, a man of enormous proportions in every imaginable way, completely larger-than-life (the Oracle who lives in the palace up in the mountains — whatever the heck that really means), is what’s called a “full-package futanari” — he has it all, all the time. Fully male, fully female.

So the only “character arc” is for the female, who starts out sheltered, naive, clueless, and virginal in every way. She finds out that she’s not only a half-moon futa, but also who she’s the intended bride of, on the same day. And then her character makes the fretful but wonderful journey from “naive, clueless and virginal” to a little less naive and clueless, as every imaginable aspect of her virginity is done away with — quite rapturously — on her wedding night. (And I guarantee you, I only wish that either one of my wedding nights had been even a fraction as rapturous as the half-moon bride’s is. Jesus.)

And since these are two hermaphrodites getting married, there is truly an amazing number of ways in which this young woman is a virgin. (And it is my humble job, as the lowly yet often celebrated writer, to unburden her of every single one.)

Anyway, it is really, really fun. And it often makes me laugh, but it is also just filthy as hell, with no real reason for existing except to be filthy as hell.

Although, actually, in reality, the story was “inspired” by the real-life person of Peter Freuchen, who was both a large and larger-than-life Danish explorer in the early-to-mid 20th Century. (You can read about him here — he truly had an amazing life as an anthropologist and an Arctic explorer, starting back in 1906.)

Here he is, with his 3rd wife, a Danish writer and editor for Vogue and Harper’s fashion magazines. (They met in America in the 1940s.)

An Irving Penn Portrait for the Coldest Days of Winter: “Peter and Dagmar Freuchen” | The New Yorker — Photo by Irving Penn

So you can see the “gigantic proportions” I am referring to. Why I made them hermaphrodites is anyone’s guess. But honestly, you don’t have to be me to look at those two and wonder what certain personal things were like, right??? What the possible challenges were…

So anyway. For some reason, I’m using a sort of archaic and formal language for the story, as well. Which tends to make it even stranger. (Words like vagina, testicles, rectum, vulva, eventually give way to words like cock and pussy, once she goes from naive to a little less naive in the course of her wedding night.) (She has to stay at least somewhat naive, though, throughout, otherwise the D/s aspects of the story just don’t work.)

And there you have it — the utterly intense and insane world I am steeped in for hours and hours and hours at a time, every day, for something like 10 days running, so far. So I’m sort of exhausted.

Meanwhile, last evening, I went to bed sort of early. Not to sleep, really, just to hang out on the bed, listen to music and collapse. And while I was lying there, the blond guy on the blue motorcycle, zoomed by twice. God, is he lovely — his energy (see yesterday’s post). But it made me feel wistful — thinking of all the things I had hoped would work out in my life, but didn’t. (Primarily, two marriages, no children.)

And for some reason, I had decided to listen to Tom Petty & the Heartbreaker’s Live Anthology (2009) while hanging out on my bed. When I drove into town yesterday morning, I was listening to the live version of “Learning to Fly” from off that album and it is just incredibly gorgeous. So I decided to listen to the whole album, while lying in bed as the sun was going down, forgetting that the reason I don’t usually listen to that album, is because 2 summers ago, when I fell in love with the man who died, we listened to Live Anthology constantly while making love.

I guess I don’t have to say that I was suddenly flooded with memories, and then I realized September is upon us, which marks the 2nd anniversary of his death, so I just got really, really, really sad. Just sobbing for a little while. I miss him so much. And those songs — the music, it just brought it all so vividly back to life. It just all came out — those things I miss so much that I try never to think about or to dwell on. It all just smacked right into me, and I had not been expecting it at all.

I eventually stopped crying, because I felt like his spirit came into the room. I really did feel it. And I know that I have to figure out some way for the future that is ahead of me, for however long is left — for it to just be okay. That something good could still be waiting for me, somewhere. (Perhaps not a wedding night like the half-moon bride’s, but something comparably rapturous!) And in the meantime, I will simply continue to write.

Beginning, once again, with today.

So, Nick Cave’s Cave Things announced another new “coming soon” product this morning. (And these Polaroid-thingies sell out immediately once they get posted, folks, so if you want one, you should probably just stay poised on the website indefinitely for its release and then immediately hit the purchase button. I don’t remember how much they cost, but they’re not cheap.)

All righty!! So I’m going to get started here. My printer ink arrives today, so that’s pretty darned exciting! I hope you have a terrific Tuesday, wherever it leads you. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with the live version of “Have Love, Will Travel” from the Live Anthology and you can fill in your own rapturous boudoir memories, if you so choose!! Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya.

“Have Love, Will Travel”

You never had a chance, did you baby
So good-looking, so insecure
And now you say you can’t remember
When the lines you drew began to blur

Yeah, when all of this is over
Should I lose you in the smoke
I want you to know you were the one

And may my love travel with you everywhere
Yeah, may my love travel with you always

Maggie’s still trying to rope a tornado
Joe’s in the backyard trying to keep things simple
And the lonely dj’s diggin’ a ditch
Trying to keep the flames from the temple

Oh, and if perhaps I lose you
In the smoke down the road
I want you to know you were the one

And may my love travel with you everywhere
Yeah, may my love travel with you always

How about a cheer for all those bad girls
And all the boys that play that rock and roll
They love it like you love Jesus
It does the same thing to their souls

And when all of this is over
Should I lose you in the smoke
I want you to know that it’s all right

And may my love travel with you everywhere
Yeah, may my love travel with you always

Perfect Treadmill Weather!!

August 30, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yes, it is the most beautiful Sunday morning here in Crazeysburg, gang. 60 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny!! And going up to 80 by this afternoon!

So I indeed got on the treadmill this morning (see yesterday’s post re: 98% humidity…) and you know what else? The first 2 minutes felt endless, but then suddenly I had actually gone over the allotted time without even knowing it.

With me and this treadmill that is unheard of!! I don’t know if I ever mentioned that not only does the treadmill get you off and ~~running~~ walking at a brisk and often unwelcome 3.2 miles an hour, but it is also set on a permanent incline, so regardless of anything, you are always walking slightly uphill. Always. I think that’s the hardest part of this treadmill. Because usually, I really enjoy treadmills. But this one I now have — it just always makes you fucking work.

Anyway! It’s done!!

I forgot to mention the other day that there is another new poster available at CaveThings.com — it is “Ink and Solace,” the image being used for his current exhibit in Copenhagen, including the cover for that great book that is the companion to the exhibit (Stranger Than Kindness). The poster is £10 plus shipping.

You can purchase it here if you so choose!!

Yesterday got us ever closer to completing the new erotic short story, “Half-Moon Bride,” however, I did run out of printer ink and loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I hate that! For some reason, it is much easier for me to catch typos, as well as get an overall feel for a page of text, by printing it out.

It’s by no means the end of the world!!! I can still read straight from the computer screen, it just makes me feel unsettled to have to do that. But the ink won’t get here until Tuesday…

However, on we go!!

So no, I’m still not done, but we’re getting there. I have decided to have the new erotic stories not only available for download on the upcoming MarilynsRoomBooks.com website (which will be processed by Lulu, which accepts Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shopify, and CC);, but also (free) on Kindle Unlimited, and then also on Smashwords, which offers pretty much every eReader format there is. All short stories will be .99¢ everywhere (basically the lowest price you’re allowed to use), except for Kindle Unlimited. obviously, which is free.

I will post free excerpts here, so you can find out beforehand if you want to read the whole story. And when the stories are really short, I will offer 2 or 3 in the same download.

So that’s the plan for the new erotic short stories!

And any moment, the new novel, The Guitar Hero Goes Home, will be ready for its test print!! So we are most definitely moving along.

Well, not much is actually going on here right now, besides phone calls with Valerie, and then spending hours at my desk, working. The new script work for Abstract Absurdity Productions is on hold until I can at least get the new novel out in the marketplace (which also means setting up that new Marilyn’s Room Books website). (I know — I always have 1700 things on my plate at once.) But, you know, it’s the end of summer here and things, in general, are slowing down. Ab Ab Pro will pick up again in September.

All right. Well, I hope it’s as beautiful where you are today as it is here in Crazeysburg. Enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning, “This Game of Love” (2020), a stunning song from Mark Lanegan’s Straight Songs of Sorrow (2020). He sings a duet with his wife, Shelley Brien, on this one. It’s beautiful — hypnotic. Okay. Have a good day, people!! I love you guys. See ya.

“This Game Of Love”

Don’t let me burn like this
Save me from the fire
I know the art of loneliness
I see straight down the wire
I see straight down the wire
See straight down the wire

Free my soul of emptiness
I know the taste of sorrow
Tonight I am delirious
I live to play tomorrow
Live to play tomorrow
Live to play tomorrow
I live to play tomorrow

I came in to this town
No comfort or peace of mind
Just as the rain came down
I swear I don’t wanna lose this time

Gonna take my rightful place
In the sun high heaven above
Or there’ll be hell to pay
Am I gonna lose this game of love?

Now I lay me down to rest
Cold ground up against my back
Time and again I failed a test
As painful as a heart attack
As painful as a heart attack
As painful as a heart attack
As painful as a heart attack

Don’t make me burn like this
I know the art of loneliness
Free my soul of emptiness
Pull me from the fire

I stepped down off the train
Not looking to do no harm
Just book a room someplace
And hold devotion and warmth in between my arms
Devotion and warmth
Devotion and warmth
Devotion and warmth in between my arms
But the to and the fro
The wrath and the sloth
The back and the forth took my world apart

Lord I’ll take my place
In the sun high heaven above
Or there’ll be hell to pay
Am I gonna lose this game of love?
Am I gonna, gonna lose
Am I gonna lose this game of love?
Am I gonna lose
Am I gonna lose this game of love?
Am I gonna, gonna lose
Am I gonna lose this game of love?
Am I gonna lose
Am I gonna lose this game of love?

All Righty! We’re Gonna Try Not To Look at Porn Here Today!!

August 19, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

It wasn’t my fault, actually. It was Valerie’s.

I was just killing time, waiting for her phone call because she texted me early yesterday morning, to say she had finished the layout for the cover design of The Guitar Hero Goes Home and would send it over momentarily and then call me to discuss it…

I didn’t want to get too involved with anything important because I would only get interrupted when her phone call came. So, of course, I was looking at even more Hentai 3D Monster Porn. (See my posts from the last 2 or 3 days…) (To be fair, there is a whole lot of that stuff, gang, and the deeper you dig into it, the more your mind just gets totally blown.)

But, actually — in all seriousness– part of it is research, although I’m not going to say for what.

Anyway. Hours were flying by. Literally. Hours. Monster Porn-filled hours.

I went out to the yard and took care of all the flowers. I had lunch. I looked at the mail. Paid some bills. Looked at the phone for perhaps a text from Valerie. An update of sorts. Nothing.

So I looked at more monster porn. And gradually it became less about “research” and more about: holy shit, this stuff is fucking insane. (I actually totally love 3D hentai, and hentai monster porn is my all-out favorite, mostly because the minds that create this stuff astound me.)

Eventually, I got a text from Valerie, saying that the phone call wasn’t gonna happen (oh really?) and then I called my dad. I had dinner. I streamed some more of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (I’m back to season 1 because I’m done with all the newer seasons now and don’t want to let it go, and have discovered that I don’t recall any of the episodes from season 1 because it was 8 years ago, so it’s once again, brand new to me).

And then, the evening was so fucking lovely — just the most amazing evening for mid-August. So I sat at the kitchen table, gave one happy eye to Miss Fisher and the other deeply happy eye to my phone, where upon I began looking at even more Hentai 3D Monster Porn and was finally forced to admit to myself that the screen was way too small on the phone…

So I closed down the house for the night, even though it was only 7:30pm and even though the evening was so fucking lovely, and I went back upstairs to the 14-inch-screen on the laptop and spent the rest of the night in my room.

By the time I was finally indescribably supersaturated with monster porn, it was pitch dark outside. Jesus, you know?? I could not believe myself. Even though, technically, I did do other things throughout the day yesterday, I was basically looking at monster porn for 12 hours.

(And it was actually really fun.)

However. You know. You don’t want to have a day like that twice in a row. You might start to feel like a slacker.

So.

There is a very good chance Valerie is calling me this afternoon, but I’m not going to plan on it. I’m going to just get to work here. I know that if she doesn’t call me today, she will call tomorrow, so I’m going to focus on Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town and just see how the day unfolds.

I can’t tell you how beautiful it is again here today, gang. Just another truly stunning day. My new vacuum cleaner hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m actually really excited about getting it. I love getting new vacuum cleaners. And even though I vacuumed the whole house on Sunday (before the old vacuum cleaner exploded), the house already needs to be vacuumed again. (The joys of 7 strictly indoor cats…) So I can’t wait!! I hope it arrives today.

Meanwhile…

The Nick Cave Instagram feed announced this morning that this upcoming weekend is when they will show all those videos that fans have sent in of themselves and/or their bands, doing covers of songs by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Apparently, every entry will play on the Bad Seed TeeVee channel. So tune-in and watch everybody!! And then one winner will be selected.

(And the lucky winner will not win £200 wallpaper from cavethings.com…)

Load image into Gallery viewer, Hyatt Girls Wallpaper — Hyatt Girls wallpaper

(I really love that wallpaper but I cannot wrap my mind around the £200 price tag right now. Even though I don’t have a room in this house wherein I could actually hang that wallpaper, still. You know. I’d like to buy it and maybe save it for the next house, or my room in the nursing home. At least, I’d be assured to get visitors in my old age…)

Well, all right. I’m gonna get started here today. For real, this time. Have a great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with a dirty song about a man in love with another man’s truck….(or is it?? You decide!!). The Traveling Wilburys’ “Dirty World” from the 1988 album,The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1. Okay! Enjoy, gang. I love you guys. See ya!

“Dirty World”

He loves your sexy body, he loves your dirty mind
He loves when you hold him, grab him from behind
Oh baby, you’re such a pretty thing
I can’t wait to introduce you to the other members of my gang

You don’t need no wax job, you’re smooth enough for me
If you need your oil changed I’ll do it for you free
Oh baby, the pleasure would be all mine
If you let me drive your pickup truck and park it where the sun don’t shine

Every time he touches you his hair stands up on end
His legs begin to quiver and his mind begins to bend
Oh baby, you’re such a tasty treat
But I’m under doctor’s orders, I’m afraid to overeat

He loves your sense of humor, your disposition too
There’s absolutely nothing that he don’t love about you
Oh baby, I’m on my hands and knees
Life would be so simple if I only had you to please

Oh baby, turn around and say goodbye
You go to the airport now and I’m going home to cry
He loves your…

Electric dumplings
Red bell peppers
Fuel injection
Service charge
Five-speed gearbox
Long endurance
Quest for junk food
Big refrigerator
Trembling Wilbury
Marble earrings
Porky curtains
Power steering
Bottled water
Parts and service

Dirty world, a dirty world, it’s a fucking dirty world

Yesterday Was Wonder-Filled!

August 17, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Okay, well, sorry I didn’t post here yesterday. But I did, indeed, have just a splendid little day.

I started out thinking I was going to post here, as I usually do, but then I got on the treadmill and made the mistake of streaming another episode from Season 3 of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries while on the treadmill, and had so much fun that from that moment forward, my entire day went off onto its own little primrose path.

I split the day between streaming even more episodes from Season 3 of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and streaming many happy hours of hentai 3D monster porn (do not watch those videos if you have an issue with questionable consent — and if you do, consider yourself forewarned). (In a big way.)

And then I spent some time with my many flowers — it was just a stunningly perfect day yesterday. Sunny, warm, but not too hot. And I also cleaned the house a little bit.

And here’s a great thing: I had to order a new vacuum cleaner!! I knew my other one was getting ready to bite the dust, as it were. Not just too many years of cat hair but also cat litter, which I think takes a really heavy toll on a vacuum cleaner.

Anyway, I used mine yesterday until the very last second, when the motor got really loud and I could start smelling smoke… But I was still able to vacuum the whole house except for the stairs. So any available, perhaps somewhat “disposable” income that could have been used for buying something really cool at Nick Cave’s cavethings.com went instead toward buying an exciting new vacuum cleaner…

Oh well. But be sure to check that cavethings.com link there because new items are coming soon!! (I, personally, am still holding out for the collection of tiles and I am hoping they won’t cost £300, but I’m not really holding my breath…)

Well, gang, the plans for the online staged reading of my play Tell My Bones get more and more exciting. I believe we have a firm date for the pre-recorded “live” stream: Sunday evening (Eastern Time, but I don’t know the exact time yet) November 8th. With rehearsals beginning in October.

I have a phone call with the director here in a few minutes that will update me on all the latest plans and I just can’t tell you how excited I am that so many talented people are getting onboard.

Okay, well it is Monday, which means that, once the phone call is over, I drive into town to get the groceries, and then once I get back home, I plan to finish reading Whatever Comes My Way: Travels in the Netherlands by my friend, Roger Gaess. And once that is done, I start reading a new (as yet unpublished) novel by another good friend, Mark Pritchard, who lives out in San Francisco. So, even while I didn’t actually do any work whatsoever yesterday, my daily calendar of things to focus on is really continuing to help me stay on top of all this stuff I need/want to do.

All righty, gang. I’m going to close this and get ready for my phone call. Yesterday, was the 43rd anniversary of the death of the King. Yes — Elvis Preseley. I found out on Instagram yesterday that the last song Elvis ever sang (at home on his piano) was “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” (a Country & Western standard, written by Fred Rose). So I’m leaving you with that today. Thanks for visiting, gang!! I hope you have a great Monday, wherever you are in this beautiful world. I love you guys. See ya.

“Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain”

In the twilight glow I see her
Blue eyes cryin’ in the rain
When we kissed goodbye and parted
I knew we’d never meet again

Love is like a dyin’ ember
Only memories remain
Through the ages I’ll remember
Blue eyes cryin’ in the rain

Some day when we meet up yonder
We’ll stroll hand in hand again
In a land that knows no partin’
Blue eyes cryin’ in the rain

Here Comes A Really Beautiful Day!!

August 7, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Happy Friday, everybody.

If you are still sort of in lockdown mode (as am I), it probably feels like Saturday or Tuesday or maybe even Wednesday…

When I woke up this morning, it did not feel like Friday. It felt like Tuesday, and I felt a little crestfallen that it was already Friday. Where is August racing off to??

And I went down to the kitchen. It was still dark out, because it’s that time of the summer where things have definitely changed. It stays dark out just a little longer now. And the birds don’t start singing until about 6am — and there are maybe 3 of them, now, instead of 3000. So it’s just crickets now, during my entire breakfast.

But I stood at the kitchen sink, where I have a really great window. It’s really wide and tall. A great view. And I stared out at the dark yard and up at the sky, and I thought of that August 2 years ago, when the man was still alive and we were in the absolute thick of falling in love — which included some arguing, too, because I didn’t know how to be loved and so my constant insecurity kind of made him very frustrated.

Anyway, in my head this morning, I was talking to him and I said: Remember that August? When time stood still? And we didn’t even realize the summer was racing away?

And then after the cats were fed, and I was fed, and the many little dishes were washed, and I sat down again at the kitchen table to write in my Inner Being journals — he came through. Just like that. His words were in my head and they came out onto the page. He said hello, and that he loved me and that he did remember that August, and that he hadn’t wanted it to ever be over, but that we have evolved now (meaning both of us) and that nothing ever really ends. That’s what he “said” !

So, that made me super happy, gang. That man changed my life. My whole entire life. (If you’re new to the blog, he came into my life suddenly in July 2018, and died a handful of weeks later, in late September of 2018.) (He changed my life because he loved me, and he was actually the first person ever that I felt really loved me. Except for my grandma, but she loved me in a different way. She loved me in a “grandma” way, and this man loved me in every other way.)

And once I finally believed that he loved me (after a few really intense shouting matches, that’s for sure) my whole life changed.

Well, anyway. This is a magical house. And my kitchen is a magical place. Oh — my Amazon firestick 4 arrived yesterday, and the AC power cord to actually finally plug the TV into the wall (!!), and the only place I could find to put it for now is in my kitchen.

It seems crazy to have it in the kitchen, but there it sits, all plugged in. And I moved the hardwired speakers for the iPad up to my bedroom, where I keep my iPad at night. So now I have my iPad with great speakers — instead of the Bluetooth speaker that only lasts one hour — crowded onto my night table.

It just feels weird. But here is a photo I took last evening to send to Valerie (she’s the ~~culprit~~ friend who persuaded me to buy the firestick 4 because it was on sale). I’m watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries here:

(oh — and I can get the PBS Passport app on the firestick so I’ll be watching Endeavor on the TV this year instead of on the iPad!! It starts Sunday!!)

This morning, while I was lying in bed (feeling like it was Tuesday), I started thinking about Endeavor and how this would now be Season 7. And I recalled so well when that show first started. It was 3 houses ago. I had something like 3 TVs back then — including a much larger flat screen TV in the bedroom. And I had cable service, and premium channels, like HBO, Starz, Showtime, Cinemax, etc. (And on my iPad, I had Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime.)

And down in the family room, I had a really big digital TV that was hooked up with the DVD player, and it had the DVR box, and all that.

And a free-standing bar was in the family room, complete with top shelf liquor and all my bar ware. And wall-to-wall, built-in bookshelves. And art on the walls, and framed photos of friends and family set out on the end tables, etc.

Just like how most regular people live.

And then everything really changed. Not in a good way, but I won’t go back into that. And I got fed up with drinking and with watching television. And little by little, I got rid of everything but the iPad, the DVD player, and Amazon Prime.

So having a TV in my kitchen now does not really sit well with me, but it’s okay. And it has a really good picture.

On a totally different topic. here is the Cave Things item (see yesterday’s post re: Nick Cave’s new merchandise page) I want most (a silk screen thingie), but I can’t afford it so I’ve started a Kickstarter campaign so that you guys can help me buy it!! (I am totally kidding about that.)

I have to say,

Abstract Absurdity Productions is getting every spare dime out of me right now. Which reminds me, I took that webinar yesterday on equity financing versus debt financing for film funding, etc., and my brain did indeed explode by the end of the class. It was presented by 3 entertainment lawyers in LA, and it was an intense amount of information in just under 2 hours. Most of the basic liability information I had already gotten from my accountant, but there was still other stuff that just — well, it’s a lot to cram into this wee bonny brain of mine.

It’s not all that different from when I was running multi-media production companies 20 years ago, but this is on a much larger scale.

Anyway. Every spare fucking penny is allocated right now.

Hey. Look at this! I found this on an external hard drive while trying to find some Word files for the new Muse Revisited Volume 4 collection. It’s the house we had in Cleveland from 1966 until July 1971 — just weeks before my 11th birthday.

My bedroom was the window at the top left, behind that tree. It was a truly wonderful house. It really was. It had a big back porch off the kitchen, that had a big wooden swing hanging from the ceiling of the porch. And up above it, running most of the length of the back of the house, was a sun porch. There were 2 fireplaces in the house. And a den that had built-in bookcases on 3 of the 4 walls and a built-in desk. And the whole house had plenty of windows. We didn’t have central AC yet, but it was a really wonderful, breezy house.

Unfortunately, this is the house where my adoptive mother really started to unravel, so I have a lot of intense & terrifying memories from this house, as well. I also had my first orgasm here (I was 7), and I got my first period in this house — and I was so angry, because I was only 10 (almost 11) when that happened. And so none of my girlfriends were anywhere close to getting their periods yet. I hated that.

I was not a big fan of menstruation, in general, gang. And wasn’t sad to see it go at age 46. Although I was devastated to know for sure that I was never going to have children, other than that, I didn’t mind menopause coming so early.

Anyway. Beyond that lovely stuff — I loved that house and I loved my bedroom and I loved my little desk and I loved my big bed and I loved my record player and all my records and I loved the late 1960s. (That’s the house we lived in that summer they walked on the moon. And that’s the house we lived in when my dad was still kind of “around” and not a millionaire yet and was still really nice and we watched “Star Trek” together on the TV in the living room and I remember that it scared me! I watch that old TV show now and find it so funny that it used to scare me. Anyway. I got my first pair of fishnet tights there, and my first mini skirts. My first maxi-skirts. I lived there when I first learned French and Hebrew and learned how to ice skate and roller skate, and when I took dancing lessons and had tap shoes and ballet slippers. And I lived there when I learned how to read music and to play violin, piano, and guitar. How to ride a bike. I lived there when I fell in love with the Beatles, and with David Cassidy, and the Monkees TV show. And I lived there of course when MLK and RFK were assassinated, and George Wallace was gunned down, and when Johnny Cash had his TV show and the Everly Brothers, and the Smothers Brothers, and the Beach Boys all had TV shows. And I lived there when “Hair” was a huge scandalous hit on Broadway. And I lived there when “Laugh-In” was a huge scandalous hit on TV. And I lived there when the Beatles broke up. And when our dog got epilepsy and had to be put to sleep and I was heartbroken. And I lived there when “In the Heat of the Night” was a huge hit movie and we saw it at my dad’s drive-in theater and there was a naked woman in the movie and my little jaw fell open!! And I lived there when I started to fall in love with girls, and my little friends told me that it was a really weird thing to do. And when I lived there, every night after dinner, on the news Walter Cronkite would tell us how many US soldiers had been killed in Vietnam that day. It was quite a house. When my parents bought it, it cost something like $35K. The last time it sold, a few years ago, it went for something like $550K. Inflation is really just insane. Anyway. There was a lot to love about my childhood.)

All righty. I’m gonna get going here. It is Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town day so I am very excited to see what new stuff hits the page for the new novel.

Thanks for visiting. Enjoy what’s left of your Friday, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with another song from Lou Bega’s A Little Bit of Mambo album (1999). This time, it’s “Can I Tico Tico You” (“Tico” is a general term of endearment used by people who live in Costa Rica.) Enjoy, gang. I love you guys. See ya!

“Can I Tico Tico You”

Baby you’re my freak once in a week
we gettin’ kind of deep in my ’86 jeep
I don’t play no tricks you know the bomb ticks
the only style I play is my self-made hits
and it kicks like that yo’ it really does
was it number one hell yo’ it really was
I got the swing the king is back in the ring
ladies throw their bras when I start to sing

[Chorus:]
Can I rock it can I knock it
can I lick it can I kick it can I top it
you make me hazy you make me crazy
and baby I don’t know what I can do

We can start somethin’ fantastic that you never knew
forget you live in plastic when I keep my eyes on you
I can’t cool down because it’s gettin’ too hot
so please baby please baby never let us stop
and it kicks like that yo’ it really does
was it number one hell yo’ it really was
I got the swing the king is back in the ring
ladies throw their bras when I start to sing

[Chorus]

Another Productive Day in the Hinterlands!

August 6, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yesterday was, I mean.

But first!! The Tom Petty website released another song yesterday that will be in the upcoming Wildflowers PT. 2 boxed set. It is called “There Goes Angela” and it was just lovely, gang! An acoustic home demo. I really loved it. I cannot find a link anymore to how you can listen to it (they had it posted yesterday). But it was one of those true Tom Petty awesome acoustic songs where he empowers the woman alone in the world, as he usually did in his songs.

Also, Nick Cave’s website revealed Cave Things today!! A place where you can buy sort of extremely expensive things that Nick Cave has designed or curated in some way. The items are really cool. Some of them are “coming soon,” but the descriptions are already there. Everything is pretty much on the pricey side. For instance, a really nice guitar pick with Warren Ellis’s picture on it, which in US dollars cost about $4, before shipping. So that’s sort of a pricey guitar pick that, you know, if I bought it I would be afraid to use, because I wouldn’t want to damage it, or anything.

Still, the stuff is really cool, but being the somewhat lowly scribe that I am, I cannot afford any of the items I actually really want. But check them out anyway, because if you are not a writer, then you can probably afford everything!!

So. Yesterday.

I spent the entire day working on the re-edits of The Muse Revisited collection and came to the decision that the “new” revised edition will only be one book, and only available in trade paper, POD (Print On Demand).

My decision came about because of the page count.

It turns out Volume 1 has a really small page count, so it doesn’t really make sense to offer it separately in trade paper, even though the page count works fine for an eBook.

Then Volume 2 has a really high page count. And volume 3 has a kind of average page count.

But if I put it all together in one book — all 3 volumes, together — it becomes way too expensive for Print On Demand. So then I thought, what if I pull some of the stories, to ease up on the page count, put it out as one new collection…

…but then I couldn’t offer it as an eBook because it would potentially cannibalize any sales of the tons of eBooks I already have in the marketplace, published by myself and other more traditional publishers who wouldn’t appreciate that at all.

So then I finally came up with the idea to put it out under one cover, but only as POD trade paper.

So I pulled the erotic memoir, the erotic fantasy stories, and the erotic romance stories from the (new) 4th volume. It’s only traditional erotic fiction. But then I’m adding some stories that were not included in volumes 1-3. And now the collection covers 1994-2012, and as of right now, has 25 previously published erotic fiction stories in it.

Plus! I finally found a copy of that publishing history that SomethingDark.eu had published in 2012, and so that will be included in the back of the book, and it lists my publications, honors and awards from 1990 to 2012, and also includes a list of all the reviews I wrote of erotic fiction and nonfiction books for various magazines and websites back in the early 2000’s. But it doesn’t include the erotic art shows I curated in NYC, or any of the multi-media work I produced, which was just a hugely massive amount of work (1997-2006).

But I thought it would make for an interesting book. Again, everything in it is previously published and will really only be for people who prefer books over eBooks.

The title is: The Muse Revisited, Volume 4: The Selected Erotic Fiction of Marilyn Jaye Lewis, 1994-2012. And the cover art is going to be black & white and feature this photo below in some way, that Valerie took of me at Coney Island in 1995, just prior to my 35th birthday.

I don’t know — you can sort of tell by the expression on my face that we probably weren’t up to any good. Holly Lane was there that day, too, because the Mermaid Parade was going on that day. And if you were ever at a Mermaid Parade at Coney Island in the old days — nothing respectable at all was ever going on. And it was a blast.

Okay, so I started a new publishing company, Marilyn’s Room Books, and it will be at marilynsroombooks.com — although nothing is there yet. I don’t know if I’ll just keep it as a vanity press or publish other writers down the road, but here’s the logo, in case you’re interested:

And here, for your reading pleasure, is one story from Volume 4, that does not appear in the other volumes. It is not what I would call “erotic,” necessarily — it’s more about erotic cannibalism. It is microfiction (less than 300 words), and it appeared in Dirty: Dirty: An Illustrated Anthology of Dirty Writing published by Jaded Ibis Press, 2013, and was written expressly for them.

(And with that, I’m gonna leave you, gang!! I gotta get ready for Abstract Absurdity Productions work here today! Thanks for visiting, though. I love you guys. See ya!)

**************************************************

It was autumn, so we slung her over the split-rails to dry in the crisper breezes, knowing the smoky air would trap the piquant flavor of her and keep it that way all through the winter. Sweet meat where there were once tight curls of flaming red hairs; those lips hairless now, smooth and cool. The throbbing, over. The tender folds salted and the blood drained. In spring, she was succulent to the eye – engorged, even, to the point where she’d driven us mad. We’d warned her: “From here, we can see your thigh!” She’d laughed at us – her mirth like tinkling bells strung through plum blossoms that are caught on the gentle wind of an April rain. We could hardly fault her for it – that blithe laugh. She’d seemed as intoxicated by spring as the dewy hyacinth blossoms, or as the swollen buds of the old roses that had not yet burst with their sultry fragrance of sin. She’d refused to believe us, yet here was her proof: gone now, from the waist up. Splitter-splatter went the shards of bone in blood. “Straighten your skirts,” we’d urged her. “Don’t sit that way – we’re going balmy!” Lewdly was how she sat, legs splayed down in the grass, those flowery dresses with their many underskirts of lace raised too high. Until it was plain that she’d worn nothing under those lacy skirts; that the fleshy folds beneath the tight red curls were swollen and wet with something salty-sweet. In the summer, she was even worse. (“I want to devour you,” I’d whispered once, my fingers plunging up into her while I lost control of my very breath. I licked them then – my fingers – and madly kissed the side of her damp face.)

And What A Fine Saturday It Is!

July 25, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis 1 Comment

So far, I’m sticking to my new schedule and it has been really effective. I got the new flash-memoir piece written and sent off for possible inclusion in a new anthology. We’ll see. It’s a new market for me — well, it’s a new LGBTQ+ small press.

And now I am at last getting ready to get back to work on Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town!! And I am really excited about that.

Sometime in the near future (?) I am going to be a guest on two different podcasts. I think primarily to promote my new novel The Guitar Hero Goes Home. But it could end up being that I just promote my delightful self, in general, and chatter away about many sex-positive things. I will keep you posted.

It is such a beautiful day here today. And overall I just feel so much calmer. Having that new weekly schedule has organized my life, overnight. I wake up, I look at the calendar on my wall, it tells me what I’m scheduled to work on today, and my life instantly falls into line. I don’t have to look at my desk, from one pile to another, and feel guilty before the day even starts because I’m not getting enough done.

Well, onto other topics.

I finally gave up on Quibi. I didn’t want to. I loved the whole idea of it and I loved the series, “Agua Donkeys” but that series is long over and I don’t like anything else they’re offering. And, after chatting with Valerie in Brooklyn the other day, and she reminded me that there is a new season of “Agatha Raisin” on Acorn TV — and I love “Agatha Raisin” and I love Acorn TV — I decided it would be a better way to spend my money, so I cancelled Quibi and I re-signed-up for Acorn TV and then watched the first episode of Season 3 of “Agatha Raisin” last evening and was just delighted from start to finish.

I used to subscribe to Acorn TV, and to Hulu, and to Netflix, and also to CBS Special Access, but then I cancelled everything except PBS Passport and Amazon Prime. It was just way too much TV. I also cancelled regular cable TV because of that — just too much. And its just me all by myself here. So it was just ridiculous.

I hate spending too much time in front of the TV (or streaming stuff on my iPad). It makes me feel like my whole life is drifting away from me. And even though there are TONS of shows on Acorn TV that I just love, I am going to try to not get all-out addicted to it. Of course, now that I have my trusty treadmill, I can sort of buffer the guilt-effect by doing the treadmill while streaming too much TV…

However, I did just pre-order the new Amazon firestick 4k. I did this because I really, really wanted to watch that Nick Cave solo concert on my smart TV the other night — the TV I inherited when my stepmom died that has sat on the floor in the dining room, gathering dust for 6 months.

However, when I went to hook it up, I remembered that I didn’t have the AC cable to plug the darn thing into the wall! And that’s why it’s sitting there gathering dust! That pesky electricity current that TV sets seem to really thrive on.

Anyway, I was chatting on the phone with Valerie when I suddenly remembered I needed to order the AC cable and at that point she urged me to get the 4k firestick because it was on sale… And since, if my friends told me to jump off a bridge, I would of course do it, I went ahead and ordered the firestick 4k along with the new AC cable.

[In America, when you tell your parents you want to do something because your friends are doing it, they say, “If your friends wanted you to jump off a bridge with them, would you do that, too?”] [It is best to reply “no,” but it is almost impossible to not reply instead, “What does that have to do with anything?!”]

Little by little, TV is inching its way back into my life. I can only assuage my conscience by reminding myself of that trusty treadmill…

And it’s not that I am that much of a workaholic that I can’t have something wonderful like Acorn TV again. I don’t mind not working, especially at night. But what I do mind is how easy it is for something like “Agatha Raisin” to lead to a nice bottle of St. Emilion and some Camembert, and then the next thing I will know is that I will have gained 20 pounds or something. Putting on weight is indeed something I have a real aversion to.

Okay. Well. Not that it’s even possible to find any bottle of St. Emilion, let alone a nice one, out here in the Hinterlands. Still, it’s the whole idea.

Anyway. Enough of my insanity. All craziness aside, I do love Acorn TV and I was sad to give up on Quibi because I loved the premise so much, but I simply wasn’t watching it anymore. None of the shows appealed to me. And almost every show on Acorn TV appeals to me.

Okay, gang. Let me get back to Thug Luckless here. I hope you are having a great Saturday, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with the official trailer for Season 3 of “Agatha Raisin”. Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!

Can You Believe It’s That Time Already??

July 13, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

It is only July 13th and already a great big bunch of the birds around Muskingum County have begun migrating farther south.

I noticed two things over the weekend: One, that the cicadas have begun their noisy serenade in the evenings now. And, two: the birds no longer begin singing at 4:12am; they now begin at 5am, and there are lots fewer of them.

Then yesterday afternoon, I glanced out the window and noticed a huge flock of birds — they were flying too high and too fast for me to see what type of bird they were. Anyway — they were already flying south.

I just can’t believe how quickly my favorite time of year goes fleeting past — that time of year when hundreds of birds are singing like mad even before dawn, and my flowers are blooming, and the hot weather has truly arrived, along with the fireflies, and all 21 of my windows are wide open and stay open — all day, all night.

There’s maybe one month when all of that is happening right at the same time, and then the birds are the first to start moving along. By the end of August (just a few weeks away, really), it’s mostly the songs of crickets and cicadas that fill the air, and hardly any birds anymore.

The birds begin arriving in early April, so they’ve been here 3 months already, but still — it’s that moment when everything comes together at the same time. My favorite time. And that just flies by so quickly.

Well, I don’t want to get you depressed or anything. It’s just a melancholy sort of feeling for me. I wait all year for something that amounts to maybe one month and then it moves on.

However, the morning glories outside of my backdoor are just now starting to bloom — meaning, maybe 5 or 6 blossoms are out, but soon there will be dozens and dozens of them every morning. And my gorgeous hydrangea, off of my kitchen porch, is getting ready to burst into bloom now, too, so that will be wonderful and will last into late September.

Okay. Well, yesterday I did indeed finally finish the final edits on The Guitar Hero Goes Home. This is the third or fourth “final” edit but I honestly believe this is THE final edit, and I’m awaiting word from Valerie about when she will be able to focus on finishing up the cover design and then it will finally be published.

I’m trying to figure out what I want the name of my publishing company to be this time. (My last one was the EAA Signature Series, and it was hugely unpopular with the Federal Government, specifically, the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft. I’m aiming for a publishing company that will be less inflammatory this time around. The older I get, the less time I feel I have for going to prison.)

I’m not sure if I will publish other writers this time, or not. I am just going to wait and see what the future brings. Between the seemingly unending COVID 19 pandemic and the pandemic of the excruciatingly politically correct Socialist/Anarchist United States of Hitler Youth, I might want to just tend to my own little garden of words and leave it at that.

But we’ll see. If sanity somehow ends up reigning, I might be willing to leave my own backyard.

Today is my day to tootle off to the next town to do the grocery shopping. So I’m gonna get moving here.

Don’t forget, gang, that next week, on Thursday July 23rd, Nick Cave has that solo concert streaming on DICE: Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace. All details re: time zones and purchasing of tickets can be found on his web site here.

Okay! I hope you have a great Monday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting! I’m leaving you with this promotional video just released today for Nick Cave’s upcoming concert. (I have no clue why he chose to perform in such a hideously ugly venue — JUST KIDDING. It’s gorgeous!!) All righty!! Enjoy!! I love you guys. See ya.

Just Checking Back In Quickly

July 10, 2020 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Okay, gang, I just wanted to touch base here again this evening to let you know two things.

One is that those fan-made videos on Bad Seed TeeVee are unbelievably great, gang. They’re still streaming for several more hours, so get over there and watch some of them. You will be amazed by how talented these people are. And if you are a hardcore Nick Cave fan and are familiar with all of his records and videos, the creativity of some of these fan-videos will astound you.

I have been trying to log on & off of YouTube all day but I really want to get the editing done on The Guitar Hero Goes Home (100 more pages to go), so I can’t just hang out and endlessly watch the videos, unfortunately.

I can’t even pick an absolute favorite because I have just loved so many of them. But off the top of my head, I have to say I loved the puppet-reenactment of “The Weeping Song”, and the guy in the bathtub singing “No Pussy Blues”, the two women from the Netherlands singing “Henry Lee,” and then an animated version of “Get Ready for Love.”

Plus a whole bunch more. Anyway — go check it out! They’re so entertaining.

The other thing I wanted to say is that this week’s issue of PleaseKillMe.com (an online zine mainly about the history and culture of Punk music, but also art, poetry, fashion and music, in general, from the 1960s onward). Today’s issue has a never-before released 1983 interview with one of my heroes, the late Jim Carroll. He is backstage in Boston at the Paradise Theater, before a gig. (Jim Carroll was not only a poet and writer, but for many years, he also had a rock band that bordered on Punk). This was likely his biggest radio hit. Off of his album Catholic Boy, the song “People Who Died”:

It’s a great interview, although sometimes the sound is difficult because bands start playing in some other area of the club. But, overall, it was great. He talks mainly about his now- legendary book, his actual teenage diaries about growing up in NYC with a heroin habit while being a high school basketball star at the same time — The Basketball Diaries.

Jim Carroll, 1949-2009 | Cardboard Gods

In the video interview, he talks a lot about heroin vs. a methadone habit and has some interesting insights to what that was like in NYC back in the late 60s, early 70s. Then he also talks a bit about how he got started in the music business (thanks to Patti Smith and also the Rolling Stones — Keith Richards, in particular).

The interview took place just months before he became my teacher (!!) — I studied songwriting in a class he taught on NYC’s Upper West Side at the West Side Y. (I was already a big fan of his, so to have him as my teacher twice a week in just a regular classroom environment, not some big lecture hall or anything — it blew me the fuck away!)

If you’d like to read the article at PleaseKillMe.com, which goes along with the video, it is here.

Below, is just the video interview by itself.

And now I gotta scoot!!! Have a wonderful evening, gang, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys!! See ya.