Tag Archives: playwright

Let’s Try that Again!!

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Okay! Another day!! We’re gonna see if we can’t find some sort of balance here and do some writing that I end up keeping — not deleting — by the end of the day.

I think I’m working on Tell My Bones rewrites today. That seems to be what’s calling loudest to me right now.

By the way, Helen LaFrance will be 100 years old in just a few weeks. Her old church there in Mayfield, Kentucky, is planning a big birthday celebration for her. They’re going to send me videos of it, which the director will upload to the Tell My Bones website.

Oh, and also, please visit the web site and sign up for the newsletter! Even if you don’t think you’re likely to get to NYC to see the play —  you never know!

(And follow it on facebook here. And on Instagram at tellmybones.) (Please!! And thank you.)

Okay. I just went down to get more coffee and the world outside looked amazing as the sun was coming up, so I went out onto the kitchen porch and took a photo of Basin Street (the light there in the tree is a street light, not the sun):

Basin Street from the kitchen porch just now, as the same came up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All righty. I just got a text from Peitor just now, as his plane was landing in NYC, and he was trying to come up with loglines for our first micro-short production, Lita’s Got to Go. Here’s my favorite so far (although it doesn’t even hint at the key thing that happens):

“A psychologically disturbed woman becomes obsessed when she senses her housekeeper has been inappropriate with her furniture.”

(This is a micro-short piece of abstract absurdist humor, with that creepy Bauhaus cinematography. And erotic undertones.) (I’m guessing it will be 8 of the best minutes of your life.)

Oh, and by the way, I’m not sure now if the writer’s retreat is going to take place in Italy or not. There’s issues with the electricity there at the villa that Peitor is unhappy with, so he might be moving all the various retreats to a castle in Devon — in England. Of course I speak fluent Devon, so that would make my life a lot easier!! But we’ll see. Either way, it’s not getting underway until next year, so I’m still studying my Italian. I’ll keep you posted.

Okay, gang, this is short today because I want to get started on the play.

I leave you with my breakfast-listening music, “In My Own Particular Way”; a wonderful song off of Marianne Faithfull’s album from earlier this year (or maybe late last year?), Negative Capability. It’s an amazing album, by the way; really just sort of chilling but celebratory, too. And it’s one of those things that makes Instagram so great — I initially found out about it on Instagram because of following Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. (I find a ton of cool music by following musicians on Instagram.)

I met Marianne Faithfull once while I was working at MoMA in NYC. I think it was 1986; I was maybe 25 or 26 years old. Broken English had certainly already happened, and I think she had another album out by then, but regardless, she was this mega icon from my girlhood and I had just turned around and suddenly she was standing right there. She was smoking (you could still smoke indoors back then) and I remember she was wearing a leopard-print blazer of some kind. I was so excited, I blurted, “Oh god — hi!!” And she smiled and said, “Oh god — hi!!” It was really sweet and funny, and she had the throatiest voice since Dietrich.

I was a lot taller than her, though. I’m not sure why it bothers me that so many of these cultural icons from my youth are not taller than me. But anyway, she made my day. She even asked me my name. She was very nice.

Okay. Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a terrific Thursday, wherever it finds you and with whatever it finds you doing (or perhaps meeting!!). I love you guys. See ya.

“In My Own Particular Way”

Send me someone to love
Someone who could love me back
Love me for who I really am
Not an image and not for money
I know I’m not young and I’m damaged
But I’m still pretty, kind and funny

In my own particular way
In my own particular way
Capable of loving in my own particular way
And ready to love
At last

It’s taken me a long time to learn
In fact my whole life so far
So much rubbish I had to burn
So much I had to go through

Send me someone please who’ll love me
Someone who can see all my faults
But love me nevertheless
And we will love each other

In our own particular way
In our own particular way
Capable of living in our own particular way
And ready to love
At last

In my own particular way
In my own particular way
Capable of loving in my own particular way
And ready to love
At last

c – 2018 Marianne Faithfull, Ed Harcourt, Warren Ellis, Robert Mcvey

Hmmm. What Fucking Planet is She On…

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

Crap. You know?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So — on to more beautiful things.

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

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

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

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

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

The fucked-up-ness was simply manifold.

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

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

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

Okay, gang. I’m gonna scoot.

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

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

All righty. I love you guys. See ya.

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

Adventures in Wild Weight Fluctuations!!

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I’m still keeping this new bathroom scale. If only because I want to try to hack the code.

Apparently, I gained 5 pounds during the night. (After losing 9 pounds the previous day.)

At the very least, the scale reconnects me with everything I ate the day before. You know, it sort of acts as a grounding rod for my wildly dispersed reality. From moment to moment, I can no longer tell you what’s happening to my life. I am just so caught up in my head these days. Absolutely everything flies past me. So this new bathroom scale — its seeming slight relation to reality — sort of helps anchor me. I step on the scale. I look at that wildly unexpected number. And it makes me stop and think and remember yesterday: What was yesterday?  What did I do? What did I think? What did I eat?

So the new bathroom scale is sort of an adventure in consciousness.

An alert just came through on my laptop that the drummer Ginger Baker died. This also serves as an anchor in reality: a.) I did not know he was even still alive; b.) I can’t believe he was 80; and c.) another part of my girlhood — gone.

When these things happen, I immediately feel that I either have to die right away. Like, I don’t know, tomorrow maybe. Or just live for some stupidly long time so that the main point to my whole existence becomes: Everything and everyone I ever knew is gone. This “in between” business — where you watch everything you ever knew disappear in bits and pieces; that part gets hard to process. So I’d rather just deal with one extreme or the other. Die now, or live so very long that nothing has relevance anymore and everyone assumes I simply am just never going to die.

On a sort of similar note… I’ve been thinking the last couple days that I’d really like to take a drive to the old Civil War battle ground in Cynthiana, Kentucky, and visit my great-great-grandfather’s grave. He’s buried there in a Confederacy War Memorial. For some bizarre reason, google maps assures me this is only 3 and a 1/2 hours from Crazeysburg. I’m not sure how that could possibly be. It feels like it should be much farther away. So I think I’m going to set aside a couple days here in the fall and do that. Find some sort of a strange motel there and stay over for one night. Maybe even drink bourbon for the first time in a couple of years. (I can’t imagine being in Kentucky again and not drinking bourbon.)

I’ve listened to Ghosteen a few more times.  And that anchors me, too, actually. It has such a presence to it that I just hone right in and everything else in my mind and in my world simply stops.  I’m just listening. Picturing all this stuff that I don’t understand at all — meaning, the images just come because the lyrics are so precise and so intense, yet I have no idea what any of that whole first part of the record means. (I don’t necessarily know what the second part means, but I feel like I intuitively grasp it. The first part — any hope of concrete meaning flies away from me in all directions but it sustains such an intense beauty, regardless.)

It is enigmatic, to be sure. I feel like there is absolutely no way in. By that, I think I mean that this is sort of an operatic painting about his life, his family, his marriage — and how can you ever truly understand how the inside of someone else’s perspective of life really feels? Well, anyway, I can’t. So I can’t find my way into it. Which doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful or that I don’t love it, or that it doesn’t cause me to feel a lot of things.

Nick Cave has said things before about how songs speak to you, personally; you know, you feel like a song was written just for you and it becomes yours, in a way. Actually, there is no Nick Cave song, ever, that I felt spoke to me, personally. I do feel that way about pretty much every single song Tom Petty ever wrote — starting with “American Girl.” I heard that song in my teens and immediately wondered, “How come that guy knows how it feels to be me?” But with Nick Cave — he’s on this whole other planet from me. It’s one that I absolutely love, with all my being and all my soul, but it could not be more different from my planet if it tried. Yet I still love, basically, everything he ever wrote. Or likely will write.  Still, this new record goes even beyond that. Really, like discovering a whole new planet. Complete with a language that sounds remarkably similar to the one I know, and yet, eludes me. I think it’s just something I have to feel in my heart. And maybe meaning will come later. Or the “meaning” is simply that I feel it all very intensely. That is the meaning to it.

Okay. And on that note, the Conversations continue tonight in Austin. Maybe one lone photo appeared on Instagram from last night so, clearly this “put your phones away” idea is working. Eventually, I will no longer have any reason whatsoever to be on Instagram! But that’s okay.

All righty!! I’m gonna scoot and get Sunday underway here. Have a great day, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

“American Girl”

Well, she was an American girl
Raised on promises
She couldn’t help thinkin’
That there was a little more to life somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to
And if she had to die tryin’
She had one little promise she was gonna keep.

Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy, baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl

Well it was kind of cold that night,
She stood alone on her balcony
Yeah, she could hear the cars roll by,
Out on 441 like waves crashin’ on the beach
And for one desperate moment there
He crept back in her memory
God it’s so painful when something that’s so close
Is still so far out of reach

Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy, baby
Make it last all night
She was an American girl

c- 1976 Tom Petty

Oh Man, I Knew It Was Gonna Hurt…

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I actually did get to listen to Ghosteen last night — the new album by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.  It was still available on YouTube once I got home and was safely in bed. In my room. The only place in the world that protects me from the world. Usually.

You perhaps recall that when he first announced the new album last week and described what it was going to be about, my initial, sort of primal reaction was, Oh no, now what. A sort of “please keep that away from me” kind of feeling.

I had barely survived the first time listening to Skeleton Tree. It took a long time for me to be able to listen to that album without feeling like the world was being pulled out from under me. And I was worried that Ghosteen was going to be worse. Meaning, just too emotionally intense for me.

And guess what, gang??!!

I was right.

It’s really just a beautiful, beautiful album.  Just stunning. On so many levels. But I’m wondering, would I rather be hit by a freight train, or listen to this album again?

I’m thinking freight train. But I’m not 100% sure. I mean, luckily, God saw to it that I have ready access to a freight train — it runs right past my door, sometimes several times a day. And night. I already pre-ordered both the MP3 and the CD of Ghosteen. So when one of those things arrives, I’ll wait to press the “start” button until I know for sure a train is coming, and then decide at the last minute…

Jesus Christ, right?

It is just too beautiful. And part of what tormented me most is that, a huge portion of it, I don’t understand. The whole first album, which is being told by “the children.” Or it simply is “the children.” And I don’t understand why it’s “the children.”  I couldn’t figure that part out.  Why is it “the children”? And I’m thinking it’s maybe because I never had any so I’m not able to access something important there. And that alone, that state of being childless, is just something that’s unbearable for me, on any given day, at any given time, in any given year.

So that got triggered, and from there, everything sort of spiraled down for me.  The only way I know how to handle that whole subject is to close the door and walk away. But, come on! It’s a Nick Cave album! He hasn’t had a new album out in a couple of years. I don’t want to just close the door and walk away.

The second half, the part about “the parents” was easier for me to at least maybe understand.  I could understand why “the parents” were saying that second part.

Well, anyway. I’m sure I will adjust over time. Find my way back from the train tracks and maybe not be any worse for wear. Or, maybe even create great art. That would be cool. (I’m being sarcastic there because, of course, I think that’s the sole reason I even exist — to create art.  And it gets tiring. Wouldn’t it be cool if God had created me for something/anything else?  You know, like: Let’s let her have this great LIFE so that she doesn’t have to create art in order to process the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning…)

So, anyway. In all honesty, it is a beautiful record. Majestic and exquisite. Just so beautiful. And whether or not I can process it, isn’t the actual point, is it? Great art is supposed to make you feel something, so in that respect, it was a truly GREAT work of art. (And I did, indeed, see that coming.)

Okay.

So Sandra texted me yesterday and guess what? She’s working on a new play. Writing a new play, I mean. I am her collaborator on theater projects so this means that I, too, am working on a new play.

We have two other plays on the back burner, that are just barely even developed. But it sounds like this new one has her complete attention. Even though she’ll be going to Stratford to play the role of Mama Morton in “Chicago” at the same time that we’ll be doing the full-length staged reading of Tell My Bones in NYC; and we have our other play to do in Toronto, although that one has come to a little bit of a standstill right now, awaiting words from lawyers and accountants. Apparently, we will be undertaking another new play.

You know, when she texted me that, I wanted to just lie down and refuse to get back up. I’m sort of wiped out. These new Tell My Bones rewrites are probably the most important work I’ve had to undertake in my entire career. I need to focus.

This is when it would be good to just say “fuck the world,” and just  drink & smoke.

But I don’t really do either anymore. So, onward.

The morning here — meaning 5:30 am — was quite, quite lovely. There was something sacred in the stillness. The heatwave broke. Fall is really here. Another opportunity to try to figure out what the heck any of this all means, and why love seems to still be at the root of all of it.

I woke up crying. Not sobbing, or anything, but tears were in my eyes from the moment I awoke and they stayed there all during breakfast.

But I stayed in bed for a little while, wondering about the “story” of a person’s life, juxtaposed against how that life might have felt to be lived. F. Scott Fitzgerald came to my mind. He is now considered one of the greatest literary writers of the 20th Century. If you know his life, his career, at all, you will know that his outrageously uncontrolled alcoholism defined him while he was alive. And his wife was nuts and every extravagant thing about her cost him a fortune. It wasn’t until he died that his writing, alone — his creations, his art — could stand on its own, without the pain of how his life felt to be lived. (I’m not even going to try to talk about Zelda and her tragic fate because now she’s too bogged down in revisionist, feminist theory kinds of stuff.)

But there was the “life” he was creating while he lived. Meaning his endless and amazing short stories (that he wrote to keep himself afloat financially) and then his beautiful novels — that not only document the times he was living in, but created them at the very same time: The Jazz Age.

And then there was his actual life. Complicated, frustrating, passionate, tragic, short. And absolutely saturated with booze.

I’ve been thinking about this stuff lately because I am so very, very tired of “my life” and how it lived. But because I know how to write, it “saves” everything, you know? I can create a reason for life to feel worthwhile. And most days, that’s enough for me. Other days, nothing’s enough.

Okay, I’m gonna scoot. Get more coffee. Look at the beautiful, sacred morning some more. Embrace autumn. Let love be enough. Thanks for visiting. I love you, guys. See ya.

“Bye Bye Blackbird”
c – 1926

Blackbird, blackbird singing the blues all day right outside my door
Blackbird, blackbird gotta be on your way
Where there’s sunshine galore
All through the winter you just hang around
Now you’re going back home
Blackbird, blackbird gotta be on your way
Where there’s sunshine galore

Pack up all my cares and woes,
Here I go, singing low,
Bye, bye, blackbird.
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar’s sweet, so is he,
Bye, bye, blackbird.

No one here can love and understand me,
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.

Make my bed and light the light,
I’ll arrive late tonight,
Blackbird, bye, bye.

Pack up all my cares and woes,
Here I go, singing low,
Bye, bye, blackbird.
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar’s sweet, so is he,
Bye, bye, bye, bye, blackbird.

I said, no one here can love and understand me,
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.

So, make my bed and light the light,
I’ll arrive late tonight,
Blackbird, bye, bye.
Make my bed and light the light,
I’ll arrive late tonight,
Blackbird,
I said blackbird,
I said blackbird,
Oh, blackbird, bye, bye.

c – 1926 Henderson -Dixon

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

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

You know, it isn’t actually my fault.

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

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

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

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

Aaaaaach. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.

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

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

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

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

Okay.

Yesterday was very interesting indeed!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, well. Anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“In the Dark of the Sun”

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

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

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

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

c – 1991 Tom Petty

Yeah, Well. Now It’s All About Work…

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I feel like I need a vacation just from having been away for 8 days… plus catching that darn cold. But, alas. It’s not to be.

I know I’ve said this before, but I honestly can’t even imagine what a vacation would feel like, or where I would even go.

It, of course, has come to my attention that the first full-length staged reading of Tell My Bones will be happening in NYC directly before I’m supposed to oversee my first Writers Retreat at Villa Monte Malbe, so that’s interesting, right?

Not that it can’t be done. It certainly can. I’m mostly just concerned about what will likely be my intensely frazzled frame of mind. Going back to NYC, dealing with the rehearsals, then the actual reading and all that that will entail, then fly off to Italy, go deep into Perugia, all by myself, where I don’t speak the language (even though I study it every single darn day– the only way I will be any good at Italian is if everyone there just gives me written quizzes and doesn’t attempt to actually converse with me), then attempt to communicate with the staff at the retreat– the kitchen staff, housekeeping , none of whom, I’ve been assured, speak English; and then try to help about 15-20 writers that I won’t have met before have some sort of magical relaxing creative ethereal sort of experience.

You know, it’s always really important to me that when other writers work with me — either in a collaborative way, or they hire me to be their editor, or they come to me as a writing student — I always want the other person to find something truly expansive in that experience. Help people approach their writing in an empowering way, or maybe in a way that helps them understand themselves better as someone gifted and born to write. That type of thing. It matters a lot to me.  I would rather not be out of my fucking mind while I’m trying to do that.

I guess we’ll see.

More wonderful photos out of Canada last night! This time, Toronto. Although I don’t think anything is going to compare with that theater in Montreal. (I’m speaking about the Conversations with Nick Cave, in case you’re new here and wondering what the fuck I’m suddenly talking about.)

Next he will be in Chicago — a mere 45 minutes from Crazeysburg!! (By plane, that is. ) I really like Chicago. I have some wonderful memories from the old historic Palmer House Hotel there!! And their Art Institute. I wish I were going…

Anyway. I’m gonna scoot here and get to work.  I’m kinda hoping the Universe has something figured out for me because, left to my own devices, all I manage to do is work too much. Oh, and a web site for Tell My Bones will be forthcoming in the very near future, gang! Meanwhile, please follow the new facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/tellmybones/

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Okay. Thanks for visiting, gang!! Have a super Sunday, wherever you are in the world!! I leave you with this true gem from Tom Petty’s Highway Companion solo album, “Square One.” I think he wrote it about himself & Dana, but then I think he wrote everything about Dana… She was his angel. Okay. I love you guys. See ya.

“Square One”

Had to find some higher ground.
Had some fear to get around.
You can’t 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.

[Chorus:]
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.
c – 2006 Tom Petty

Frankly, I Think We’d All Look Pretty Darn Good in There!

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Wow, the photos from Nick Cave’s Conversation in Montreal last night were positively STUNNING.

The theater itself was gorgeous, and he looked incredible on that stage. (And not meaning it as a backhanded compliment — that theater was so gorgeous that I think any one of us would have to work pretty darn hard to not look kind of stunning up on that same stage.)

Anyway. Every time I think a show looks like it was incredible, another batch of photos & comments comes through Instagram that makes another show seem even better.

This is the very reason why I need to be attending every single show. But I have this pesky thing called “my life” — you know? It’s always getting in the way. Needing things, like, my presence within it.

Wow. Okay.

This darn chest cold is not yet gone. But it really feels like today will be the last day of it. Meanwhile, though, my brain has not been able to really focus on those intricate details it needs to focus on in order to get the rewrites underway. But I’m not stressing. There is still time.

Yesterday, Gus Van Sant Sr got in touch with me again re: my trip to NYC and my meeting with Sandra and the director, and he did something that I can’t really discuss on the blog, but I can say that it absolutely blew my mind. He is so kind. So generous. And it came on the heels of that intense phone call with my dad, so what Gus did just felt even more like a miracle from Heaven, you know?

That man has been such a blessing to me. I don’t even want to think about what my life would have been like if he hadn’t walked up to me out of the blue that morning, not knowing me from anyone else on Earth, only going on something his barber had told him out at his country club — “I hear you’re a writer and that you need work. Do you want to come work for me?”

Oh my god — yes. I sure do. How amazing, right?

It changed everything in my world that was truly spiraling downward at that point. He is just the nicest man.

Well, okay. I actually have to scoot here, gang. I think I need to go back to bed for a little bit. I’m still sort of wiped out.

But have a super-duper Saturday, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting. I leave you with this. I have no idea why I started suddenly listening to Let Love In again while driving home from NY, but I just love this album. It is truly a bonanza of darkness set to really excellent music.  I love every song on this fucking album, even though I have to assume that the worst happened to every girl who’s ever left him. Like, in this song below, “She’s Nobody’s Baby, Now” — did he kill her? I mean, it seems like he killed her, right? Or somebody did. The entire album is like a Rape & Murder Festival, so it just sort of seems like she met with foul play.  And that song “Thirsty Dog” just cracks me up.  It is, like, just so deranged. The lyrics, I mean. Anyway. It’s such a cool album from God knows how many years ago now. But I leave you with “She’s Nobody’s Baby, Now”. Okay. I love you guys! See ya!

“Nobody’s Baby Now”

I’ve searched the holy books
Tried to unravel the mystery of Jesus Christ, the saviour
I’ve read the poets and the analysts
Searched through the books on human behaviour
I travelled the whole world around
For an answer that refused to be found
I don’t know why and I don’t know how
But she’s nobody’s baby nowI loved her then and I guess I love her still
Hers is the face I see when a certain mood moves in
She lives in my blood and skin
Her wild feral stare, her dark hair
Her winter lips as cold as stone
Yeah, I was her man
But there are some things even love won’t allow
I held her hand but I don’t hold it now
I don’t know why and I don’t know how
But she’s nobody’s baby now

This is her dress that I loved best
With the blue quilted violets across the breast
And these are my many letters
Torn to pieces by her long-fingered hand
I was her cruel-hearted man
And though I’ve tried to lay her ghost down
She’s moving through me, even now
I don’t know why and I don’t know how
But she’s nobody’s baby now

c – 1994 Nick Cave

Who Does This Sound Like, Gang??!!

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As most of you know, my birth mom has been staying at my house, taking care of my cats while I was away.

She called me on the phone yesterday to tell me that she will probably still be there this evening when I get home because my sister is coming to pick her up after work and she has to work late.

I’m actually really happy that she will still be there and I can see her again— plus it’ll be nice not coming home to an empty house.

But listen to what she said: “It gets so warm during the day that I go around and open all the windows, then in the morning, it’s freezing so I go around and close them. Then midday, I open them all up again!”

That’s so funny, right?! That’s how I spend every single darn day! Just hearing her say that, and that weird tone in her voice— the one that perfectly matches the voice in my own head — made me feel way less crazy about all those windows. It was too funny.

And you are all my witnesses: you all know that I tried really hard to get that house clean before she got there. I did my very best. However, she told me yesterday that she dusted and vacuumed and swept the porch and cleared off the cobwebs there—and cleared out all the weeds from the front of my house!!!

Jesus. I must say, I’m kind of excited but, you know, I was really trying not to let that happen. I really was. But since I sort of failed there— well, wow. Yay!! Coming home to a clean house and no weeds!!

The other amazing thing that made me so happy, so excited: She actually bonded with all those crazy cats! Well, all of them except Francis, who is just one mean little cat. But she said they come out in the morning to get fed, and then come out again in the evening to get treats! This sounds simple to you, but is unheard of in my house because my cats are feral and terrified of people. They will hide for literally days on end if people are about.

I had a feeling that my mom was going to make some progress with them.  I’m so happy. Plus this means they didn’t act out while I was gone by pissing on everything. Yay!!

Okay, well as sad as I am to not be attending anymore Conversations with Nick Cave, they do indeed resume tonight in Cambridge. Lucky ducks!

There were some great photos on Instagram from both shows in NYC— both from onstage and offstage, so that was cool. Even though, specifically at Town Hall, it was really distracting and annoying to have those people around me taping everything with their phones, especially when the whole theater was dark and he was singing. Those annoying phone lights. Then of course, it makes the ushers have to come over and flash another light at the culprits to get them to put their phones away. Just maddening all the way around. So distracting.

But of course, people like me then go on Instagram and hit all those little “like” buttons, saving all those great photos, and only reinforcing all this bad behavior!!

Okay, gang. Gonna go say my prayers and offer some gratitude to St. Francis, St. Christopher, and Christ himself, in preparation for another 9 or 10 hour drive.

It really was such a successful trip. And the Airbnb wasn’t horrible. I might do it again next time, I’m not really sure. As much as I love hotels, I did like the casualness of just trotting down the stairs and hitting the street. So we’ll see.

All righty. Thanks for visiting!! The next time you see me, I’ll be up to my eyeballs in rewrites! Have a great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world, gang. I love you guys. See ya!

Okay, Gang! She’s Outta Here!!

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First, allow me to complain a little bit!

In no particular order:

  • Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds sent out an email this morning listing the upcoming listening events for the new album, Ghosteen, and apparently they accidentally left Crazeysurg off that list and so now I have no idea where I’m supposed to go! It looks like maybe Belgium is my closest option.
  • I am really, really tired of the lousy air quality in NYC and cannot wait to get back to Rhinebeck this afternoon. My throat is, like, raw.
  • While the audience at Town Hall last night was really fun and enthusiastic, they were the most fidgety bunch of people I’ve ever been anywhere near. First of all, at least half of the balcony arrived “late” — and I put that in quotes because they weren’t late, they were out in the upstairs lobby drinking and ignoring the flashing lights. So about 700 million of them came in and tried to find their seats after the Conversation had already started. And then I have never seen so many grown up people get up & down and go in & out— going for more drinks, going to the use the bathroom, etc. I really just wanted to smack all of them throughout the entire show.
  • The man in front of me — who arrived late and then left early to catch his train out of Grand Central— was really tall and it was a constant challenge for me to see around his head until he left (early) but then 10 minutes later, the show was over.
  • I have never seen so many people get up and go catch the last train out of Grand Central at the very same time as I saw last night (meaning: 10 minutes before the show ended).
  • Overall, while indeed enthusiastic, the audience last night drove me a little nuts.

Other than that, though, the Conversation itself was great. Very different energy from Lincoln Center, yet both were somehow equally great. And even though I was in that balcony with all those fidgety, constantly moving people, I still had a really cool view— dead center.  I could see everything easily— except for having to contend with that tall guy in front of me.

I still think it’s better than being on the main floor if you aren’t seated right up in front.  And even though Nick Cave himself seemed to be in a different headspace last night as compared to Lincoln Center — where he was sort of more subdued or something— Town Hall is now just a really sucky place to be in the audience after experiencing that specific theater at Lincoln Center, which was just incredible.

Okay, so I’m gonna get a Lyft here in about an hour and try to get through the insane Midtown traffic in time to catch my train out of Penn Station at 10:20am. Sandra is taking a later train but, truthfully, I just can’t get out of here quick enough. I just feel like I need some decent air.

I did spend a few hours with Valerie yesterday afternoon and that was really nice. I have had a ton of quiet time during my stay here in the city, so it was just so great to spend some time with someone who knows me so well, who laughs a lot, and who is such a huge part of the “old” New York. That old vibe— meaning, not militantly-politically correct.  And Valerie is a really tall, butch dyke who drinks and smokes and is extremely liberal and has been for 60 years, and yet she, too, has to contend with the constant onslaught of the intolerant zealously-politically-correct hordes. It gets so tiring.

I’m not sure if I prefer the Mongol hordes to this current horde of zealously PC liberals or not. I have to give it some thought.  I’ll get back to you.

After lunch, we hung out on the stoop so that she could smoke and we did indeed discuss Mick Jagger’s weird inability to age— how it was sort of spooky. (And I wasn’t the one who brought up this topic, either, so clearly, I am not the only person who’s kind of creeped out by him nowadays.) But I did fess up to my recent discovery that, like Mick Jagger, I, too, prefer the idea of having sex with much younger women over having sex with 70-year-old women, and so I can’t really call that particular kettle black anymore.

And, of course, she concurred. Which, in itself, is kind of weird because we were lovers for 20 years, and now I guess we’re agreeing that even we are too old to seem like an appealing sex option to each other.

(I’m sort of just kidding. However, under our breath, so as not to be overheard by the PC militant zealots scurrying around us, we agreed that when it came to girls, we liked them “really young.”)

All righty!!!!

So!

Wednesday, I make that drive back to Ohio and I’m not 100% psyched for that trip yet, but I’m looking forward to spending the rest of the day and evening in Rhinebeck and I guess spending some more time discussing the theater projects with Sandra in person.

Sandra works a lot, mostly in television in Canada, and it can be really hard to get her complete attention (or to even get her to reply to a text) when she’s working. So I need to get as much out of her as I can whenever she’s directly in front of me.

That said, though, I’m still not ready to tackle the next round of rewrites on the play. I can tell that all of it is gestating inside me, so I’m not concerned. I just know that I’m not quite ready.  I know I will be once I’m back at my own desk, with my Muse suffusing my entire room.  Although, Peitor texted, wanting to know when we can get back on schedule with the micro-scripts. So I guess I’m getting ready to be really busy again.

Well, needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, it has been so great to be able to see Nick Cave in the Conversation environment— twice. It really was just the best time and I’m feeling a little misty over having to move on.  But on we must all move.  Who knows when I will ever see him again in that specific, focused way. But it was just so wonderful. I just love him so much. And last evening— I can’t recall which song it was that he was singing; maybe “Love Letter,” maybe “Shivers,” — but for several fleeting moments, I saw the young Nick Cave coming through in his face, his expression. It was really interesting. Beautiful, I guess.

And now I must open the Lyft app and get that underway. Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!

 

 

Hell’s Kitchen 5PM !!

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Lunch was great. Sandra was awake and up and about, so she hopped a Lyft and joined me & Wayne.

We went to the West Bank Cafe. I hadn’t been there in maybe 25 years— something like that. From before my marriage to Wayne. Back when I was having an extremely intense short-lived affair with a bass player who was engaged to be married. He mistakenly thought I was a dyke so he used to flirt with me rather recklessly. I guess I turned out to be not such a dyke…

Anyway, it turns out that— lo! —  these many years later, Wayne is friendly with the owner there and he introduced me today as his wife!! It was weird. Both Sandra and I were, like — actually we didn’t know what to make of it. Right away, I said that I was his ex-wife, and then I felt kind of bad — you know, the blinding speed with which I clarified that. Like, you know, please don’t think for a fraction of a second that I’m married to this perfectly reasonable, well-groomed man sitting here or anything. I did feel kind of bad.

Yes, I did talk a little tiny bit at length about Nick Cave during lunch, but only because they FINALLY got around to asking me how the show was last night. Wayne, of course, knows at least some of Nick Cave’s music, so that was cool.

Now I am back in my room. I have been quite busy! I’ve taken about 30 naps; looked for photos of Nick Cave on Instagram— of which there were many; not just from the show last night but because it’s also his birthday today, so everyone’s posting his photo and wishing him a happy happy.

I also spoke at length on the phone to Valerie, even though I’m spending several hours with her tomorrow.  Luckily, even after nearly 40 years, we still don’t run out of things to talk about.

I’m not sure I will make any progress on rewrites of the play today. I just want to lay in bed, drift in & out of sleep. Listen to all the crazy traffic outside.

Here is what it looks like directly across from my (extremely filthy) window at the Airbnb.

    Outside the filthy Airbnb window. The no longer quite so hellish Hell’s Kitchen. 5 pm.

Okay! Have a terrific evening, wherever you are in the world, gang!! I love you guys!