Tag Archives: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Okay, um — is it just ME?!

Leave a comment

I realize that I have an over-zealously filthy imagination, basically 24/7 — but does that photo above look a little on the lurid side to you?

It does to me. Jesus.

I spent most of the afternoon cleaning my house yesterday, and so I was going to regale you with something chaste and in really good taste (you know, sort of like moi) and, until that  provocatively positioned gal scrubbing floors on all fours caught my eye, I was going to go with something like this and try to pass her off as me:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I realize you don’t fool that easily, but I was still going to try… And please don’t tell me that the gal on all fours looks a lot more like me than the chaste gal in the intensely straight flowered apron does, because then you will only hurt my feelings and from there, we will go nowhere fast.

All righty!! Well, if you’re joining me yet again, I accidentally posted this post too soon!! Yes — it went out to about 400 people before I could stop it.

But here I am again.

I hope that was not an indicator of how the rest of my day will go.

So, yes, I did spend the afternoon cleaning my house yesterday.  And I had no less than nine windows open. It was such a beautiful day here. So sunny. Warm. Totally Spring. The cats were incredibly joyful with those windows open.

You know, I am always really aware of how sad the cats get when Autumn comes for real and I have to close all the windows for the duration. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I really saw the immediate difference the seasons make in the cats: Because of the open windows, they didn’t sleep the whole day away yesterday. They were perky and alert and just so joyful. So happy. Hanging out together by the open windows in the family room. All their little tails up straight & tall. It was so cool to watch it. And in the evening, they hung out by the open windows in the kitchen — I was in there streaming DCI Banks at the kitchen table, so it was almost like they were hanging out with me. (But, alas, I don’t fool that easily, either.)

Today is going to be another really gorgeous day. So I’m looking forward to it. It helps with the quarantine stuff when I can actually step outside and look up at the sky, you know?

Some more good news — my friend who works for NASA in Houston, who has been battling cancer for several months now, has finally begun to put on some weight. Still 2 more weeks before he will know if the radiation/chemo therapy worked.  But it’s a relief that he’s finally been able to at least put on some weight. We’ll see.

Other good news is that there were no new confirmations of the virus here in Ohio during the night. (Of course, alas, the day is still young.)

And still no cases of the virus at all in Muskingum County.

So, yes, I cleaned yesterday and I didn’t write.  I did think about writing, a little bit. And I’m not sure what I’m going to do today.  I think I’m just going to let life dictate to me where it wants to go. (I’m not really good at this, but I’m learning.) (There are a lot of things I’m not really good at, actually, and so I’m trying to listen to Life a whole lot more than I ever did.)

And yesterday, I also heard from a number of people from all over the place — just checking in to see how I was, which was so nice. Plus, my dad called me! Which is weird, of course, because I’m the one who calls him every day now.

But if you recall this blog on Tuesday, you might recall that I was having a really bad day, for a number of reasons.  And my phone call to my dad on Tuesday included me going off with the “F” word a lot, about various personal things and stuff even about my last marriage, oddly enough.  I actually couldn’t stop — I was a real cavalcade of the “F” word during that phone call on Tuesday. I was just so angry about so much stuff.

So my dad called yesterday to see if I was feeling better, which was really nice. And I actually was. I felt worlds better yesterday.

Just trying to get a grip on everything, you know? With or without this pandemic — although the pandemic sure brings things into tight focus, doesn’t it? In fact, nowadays, I hear from my first husband constantly — he emails me something like 5 or 6 times a day now from Seattle. Sometimes more. Sometimes it’s terrible news stories, but usually they’re upbeat funny little emails. They perk me up, for sure. He has a dry and very gentle sense of humor. He always has. His unusual sense of humor was what first attracted me to him. (And then his enormous capacity for quiet compassion was the next thing…)

I don’t understand life, at all, you know? I understand all of the choices I’ve made, and why I made them when I made them. And I don’t really have any regrets. And things that maybe I used to regret, I see now that there was no reason to have regrets because the decision wound up being the right one, in hindsight. But still. I don’t know. Life is just weird. (And I’m not just talking about my marriages, I’m talking about all the major decisions I’ve ever made.) (I remember every single fucking one of them.)

Okay, gang. I’m gonna close this and give some thought to what to do today.  I’ll write something, probably, but I don’t know what. I hope things are good where you are, that you’re keeping everything at bay. Thanks for visiting. I didn’t listen to any music at breakfast this morning, so I’ll leave you with my housecleaning music from yesterday afternoon!! Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Playback CD #4: “The Other Sides”.  Songs they never released on any studio albums. All righty! Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpkylB56P8s

“Psychotic Reaction”
(Recorded live, with Heartbreakers’ drummer Stan Lynch on vocals)

I feel depressed, I feel so bad
‘Cause you’re the best girl that I ever had
I can’t get your love, I can’t get a fraction
Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction

And it feels like this!

I feel so lonely night and day
I can’t get your love, I must stay away
I need you girl, by my side
Uh-oh, little girl, would you like to take a ride, now
I can’t get your love, I can’t get satisfaction
Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction

© 1966  Kenn Ellner, Roy Chaney, Craig Atkinson, John Byrne, John  Michalski

You’re Not the Boss of Me!!

4 Comments

Just no way do you get to tell me what to fucking do! Yay!

That’s pretty much the attitude of most of the people who live in Ohio, which is of course why so many people (moi aussi) continued to congregate in groups way larger than 50 until the Governor had to step in and issue actual mandates that forced people (like me) to not only stay home but to not even be allowed to vote. Wow. Talk about getting your privileges suspended…

So when the number of confirmed cases of the virus basically doubled overnight in the State, it was not a surprise to me at all, not in any way whatsoever, so I have to wonder how come “officials” found this leap “startling”?

I love when the “people in charge” have no real clue what the “people they are in charge of” are doing.

(A good example of that, you know, was when Trump won the Presidency. A lot of people in Ohio voted for him. I know it won’t shake you to your very core to learn that I did not vote for Trump. But, still, he won. And in my opinion, he’s the President of the United States. Because people voted for him. I know for a fact that they did. And it’s why I’m so sick of the Democrats because they spent the past 4 years submerged in this infantile outcry, stamping their little feet, wasting everybody’s time & money, trying to remove him from his elected position, rather than spending all that time & money making America great again in ways that were more in keeping with their own beliefs about America.) (Which is why, in my opinion, America is a great country– you’re legally allowed to have whatever opinion you want and you’re allowed to publicly say whatever you want to about the President without fearing for your very life and liberty. And it’s odd how so many people who are not Democrats tend to see that fact really clearly and so they continue to vote in that direction.)

Anyway. No one has died from Covid 19 yet in the State of Ohio. But we are up to 67 confirmed cases. Way more than Kentucky and Indiana have, combined. So, on we go.

It will, alas, perhaps come as no surprise to you to learn that my table-read in NYC for Tell My Bones has ground to a thorough and complete halt. So much so, that the director of my play texted me last night to say he was flying back to Ohio first thing this morning to spend the Spring and Summer here in his mansion on the hill.  He will be here until late August, just to get clear of NYC and the virus there. (Here in Muskingum County and also in the county where the director has his other home, there are so far no known cases of the virus.)

So the table-read in April is one less thing I have to do. And then that Literary Arts Fair in June that I backed out of because of planning to go to Zurich to make new friends and see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, means two less things that I have to do.

And of course I scan the Nick Cave web site daily for any indication whatsoever that he might be postponing the European start of the Ghosteen Tour, and so far he his hanging tough — the only one in the world who is, actually. But that might be a third thing I won’t be doing this Spring/Summer if he does end up postponing the tour.

And of course the meeting with the TV streaming platform for Abstract Absurdity Productions in LA has been postponed until after the international quarantine is lifted. So that’s another thing that I won’t be doing this Spring. Although, for now, the film shoots will still be happening in Los Angeles this summer.

Sandra called last night and we chatted for quite awhile. Yesterday, the production of “Chicago” that she’s been rehearsing up in Stratford, Canada got closed down and so she will be back in Rhinebeck by Monday. (So, now that her schedule will be indescribably free for the table-read of Tell My Bones, there isn’t going to be one until the Fall.)

The only thing that remains in place for me, career-wise, is that our other play is still slated for production in Canada at the end of this year. And this sudden freed-up schedule for both Sandra and me, means that we can tackle some of those massive re-writes for that other play. And we’re both feeling really excited about that. We’ll probably just do it on Skype; I’m not planning to go back to NYC now before the Fall. But I’m still feeling really excited about getting back to work with her on that play.

So, all those things that I was worrying about having to do all at once, have now basically entirely disappeared.

And now all I have in front of me yet again is time to sit at my desk and write.

I made some progress with my broken heart during the night. Turned a little corner. Release people to what they need in their own lives and just open up my strange little path and embrace whatever comes along on it.

I’m not able to stop loving someone once I love them, but I am able to find a different place for it inside and then keep going.

Listening to the Bee Gees of course while you have a broken heart is never a good idea. We all know this. It is a documented fact that it only makes your heart break more. And yet, I guess I’m an Ohio girl after all, because I’ve been listening to the Bee Gees “How Can You Mend A  Broken Heart” pretty much non-stop for a few days. (That’s correct: No one in the universe is the boss of me. I will listen to the Bee Gees if I so choose!!!)

You know, I don’t ever want to be Albatross-y to anyone, least of all, to someone I love. So I have been trying really hard to keep myself contained (in a non-Covid 19 type of way, of course, because when it comes to the virus, I want to be sure to interact closely with everyone imaginable, until the Governor himself steps in and says, “No, no, no! Bad dog!! Bad, bad dog!! Now you have to stay in your little pen and you don’t get to vote!!”).

Anyway. I’m trying to sublimate whatever I’m feeling and turn it into something that can have it’s own beauty and go out into the world in other, more acceptable ways. It’s why I’m a writer, I guess.

And last night, lights out. Dark bedroom. Shattered little heart that I was trying once more to get a grip on. Suddenly, loud and plain as day, I hear singing — music. It was so familiar to me. But it was coming from somewhere inside me.

And I thought: What is that? I know that song.

And I suddenly realized it was the chorus from Tom Petty’s song, “You & Me.” Which happens to be the last song that Tom Petty actually listened to before he died. (According to his wife, Dana, who was there with him on the bed, watching the video on YouTube, and then later he had the heart attack and did not recover.)

But it’s also a song that I really love and that man who died a couple of summers ago used to indulge me and even while he also liked Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers a lot (he was older than me, but we were in the same generation, music-wise). Anyway, we played Tom Petty songs almost exclusively while he was here in this very room with me, making a whole lot of love (before he, too, died).

So “You & Me” is a powerhouse of potential heartbreak for me, but when I suddenly realized that it was the song coming through the ether to me last night, I grabbed my phone from the night table and streamed  “You & Me” on repeat. And almost instantaneously, the energy, spirit, whatever you call it, of the now-dead guy that I loved was all over me. There was so much joy. It was like a tidal wave of it, all over me in that bed.

I knew he was with me. I could almost see him, you know? Almost. And he was just filled with joy and I couldn’t help but be swept up into it, too. And even though I don’t actually “hear” voices, I feel his voice pretty loudly inside me. I can hear/feel the words. They were undeniably him and he told me stuff that was just filled with love. So much love. And he also said, “You gotta leave that guy alone now, Marilyn. Remember the boundaries.”

He actually said that. And then I fell dead asleep — if you’ll excuse the weird pun. At one point, I remember that I turned off the music on my phone. But I slept 8 whole hours. I haven’t done that in a couple of weeks, really.

So I’m feeling better, you know? Love in the Time of Cholera and all that aside — I am feeling better. And so on we go, right, gang?

You know of course what I am leaving you with today! Enjoy it. Celebrate it. Rejoice, even. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

“You And Me”

Take a look
At what I got
I can’t promise
You a lot

But you and me
And the road ahead

I can’t save
You from yourself
You gotta want it
All that’s left

Is you and me
And the road ahead

Wherever that wind might blow
Wherever that river rolls
You know I will go with you

Lookin’ over
The mountain’s crown
The water roars
And tumbles down

Like you and me
And the road ahead

Wherever that wind might blow
Wherever that river rolls
You know I will go with you

Just you and me
And the road ahead

Just you and me
And the road ahead

© 2002 Tom Petty

Getting Even MORE Ducks In A Row!

Leave a comment

Okay. I am going to show you the (allegedly) FINAL version of our logo for Abstract Absurdity Productions. (And I love it!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to be honest, gang, I am absolutely overwhelmed by the responses we are getting to the company overall — not just our logo, but I mean our Mission, our raison d’etre, our inspiration (primarily European New Wave cinema from the 1950s & 1960s) , the storylines of our imminent micro-shorts (completely absurd plots). All of it.

And not only do we have that great cinematographer as part of our company profile now, but yesterday we got a social media expert onboard, as well,  who loves our European sensibilities and wants us to get our package together immediately in order to pitch it to an additional very high profile TV streaming platform. (We are already well connected to one other one.)

So it is extremely exciting, gang. But overwhelming, too. In a way, you know. As in: I might have to live in Los Angeles a lot of the time. I was absolutely not anticipating that.

And since the theater projects are in NYC and Canada, what does that mean?

It means that I’m sort of curiously running the potential conversation through my brain as to how I am going to convince my birth mom to live here in Crazeysburg for pretty much the rest of her life…

I didn’t sleep well at all last night. Well, I slept well, during the meager hours that I actually slept. I was awake a lot of the night. I made a decision about something on Thursday that I am determined to stick to because I know it’s the right thing. But it’s like being on one path — a path you really, really love being on. And then being re-directed by the entire Universe, basically, to suddenly go down another path. A path I can’t even really see yet, so I’m just walking it blind now, but knowing that it’s the right thing.

I don’t want to have a broken heart about all this because I know that’s not a thing that anyone wants for me in this situation. So I’m trying to just move forward.

So I laid there in the dark, the birds were already starting to sing outside my window somewhere. And I decided to stream Tom Petty’s song “No Reason to Cry,” from the amazing Heartbreakers 2010 album , Mojo.

And I’ll tell you what — I’m willing to bet money on the fact that Tom Petty knew for sure that girls would cry when they listened to that fucking song. Tom Petty-type girls, anyway.  And I did fucking cry. Because I’m overwhelmed right now. And the room was dark. And the sound quality on my iPhone is really, really good. Tom Petty’s voice filled my room like some sort of crystal bell ringing, right? So I cried a little bit.

But I also know that Tom Petty mostly wanted people to just live. Live life, fight for what you believe in, do the right thing. Stuff like that — don’t just lay in the dark and cry. So I switched to the song “Let Yourself Go,” also on Mojo. But it’s a song that I feel better represents who I really am. So I was able to move out of the tears and think more clearly.

And right then, I came to the decision (I’ve been debating it for a week now) to cancel the audition tomorrow for the literary arts festival that’s taking place in early June. It’s just too close to the trip to Zurich — assuming the trip even happens with this insane coronavirus craziness going on.

I was telling my new friend in Switzerland, regarding that literary festival, that aside from it being only a ten-minute reading, it’s a heavily edited version of a chapter from Blessed By Light that I really, really love. I am not emotionally attached to the piece at all now because I had to change my protagonist’s voice pretty extremely to get him to not only be family-friendly, but also to fit in the really short time-allotment.

So I emailed the festival people right then, before the sun was even up. And now, the Zurich thing can happen, as long as Los Angeles doesn’t become some sort of huge looming specter in early June, too… that hinges on when the cinematographer can be in LA.

Well. I forgot to mention that the coronavirus has delayed the opening of Nick Cave’s art exhibit in Copenhagen.

The announcement went out on Instagram yesterday morning. I’m guessing the book will still come out on schedule, though. So I’m making sure to keep 17 million US dollars freed up in my checking account, because I pre-ordered the book (in British Pounds Sterling) and I wouldn’t want to come up short on the day they decide to deduct the charge (for the book plus the expensive overseas shipping) from my account.

(Oddly enough, spell check doesn’t like that word “pre-ordered” and it offered me the word “pee-ordered” instead. I’m not real sure what the heck that would mean or why it would ever make sense to use it. I mean, like, what the hell would be going on when you’d need to say “pee-ordered” and it would actually make sense? Anyway.)

Well, I don’t have to do Booty Core or yoga today. And even though I have a ton of work to do on the new web site, I’m waiting for stuff from Peitor to arrive in my inbox. So until that occurs, I think I’m going to go back to bed and stare out the window for a little while. Drink some coffee. Wonder about life.

So I’m gonna scoot. Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a real good Saturday, wherever you are in the world. I’ll leave you to choose your own preference today: to cry or not to cry. Or maybe a little of both. It’s up to you — I trust your judgment completely. All righty. I love you guys. See ya.

“Let Yourself Go”

Rain on the river I’m soakin’ wet
Waitin’ on friend who ain’t come yet
And he might not get here for three or four days
Got to make a little bit go a long way

I’ve got a blond-headed woman who likes to come around
Cute little hippy girl lives in town
Brings a bag of records and she plays ’em ’til dawn
Give me a little lovin’ then she got to go home

When times are hard
When you start feelin’ low
Let yourself go
When the river’s risin’ and the world feels cold
Let yourself go
Let yourself go

I got a 442 sittin’ in the sun
Well it’s been ten years since she used to run
Man she was a beauty in ’69
But there ain’t no more comin’ down the line

When times are hard
And you start feelin’ low
Let yourself go
When the river’s risin’ and your world feels cold
Let yourself go
Honey let yourself go

c – 2010 Tom Petty

Just Too Much Joy On All Fronts!

Leave a comment

You know how some people can’t pass up coins on the ground? If they see a penny, they will pick it up, even if it’s face down? (Which is bad luck, people! I’m just saying.)

Well, I’m the type of person that cannot pass up pens on the ground!!

If I see a pen and it hasn’t been run over by a car or something, I will pick it up and see if it works. And if it works, it’s mine!! (Over the years, I have become the proud owner of a couple of mighty nice gold Cross pens because of this habit of mine.) (I’ve also become the not-so-happy owner of a few truly awful pens — the kind where you can immediately see why its previous owner didn’t even take the time to seek out a trash can and simply threw it, most likely in rage, to the ground.) (However, I keep even the lousiest of pens because you just never know when you’re going to need a pen that at least works or has ink in it.)

Anyway, yesterday, I found the most amazingly perfect pen. And it’s just one of those cheap ball-point pens, too, that’s advertising some business or other and isn’t very pleasing on the eye and yet, when I quickly scribbled with it on a piece of scrap paper — wow. I could not believe my good fortune. It is like the best pen ever. I am so serious.

First thing this morning, I used the pen to write in my Inner Being Journal thingy and it just — I don’t know; it was such a joy. I just love a great pen. I’m a writer — pens mean a lot to me!!

I’m reminded suddenly of the last (and I like to think final) time I attempted suicide. Things were of course dreadful in my life. I was 19. I’d already dropped out of college — I hated college, even though I was majoring in Theater Arts and thinking that maybe I would like to be a playwright. I simply hated the school. But because my adoptive mother felt I was mentally ill, she wouldn’t let me even consider any of the schools I really wanted to go to (to study Theater).  (And as an aside, I did have a psychotherapist at that time who didn’t think I was crazy — he actually thought my mom was crazy and he told me so. But, sadly, it was our little secret for a very long time.)

Anyway. I was really smart. I graduated close to the top of my class in high school — and had I not been constantly skipping school back then (and I mean constantly; I hated the arbitrary rules &  structure of school) I probably would have been right at the very top of my class.  Nevertheless, I was still Valedictorian on Graduation Day — and there were over 800 kids in my graduating class, so that says something about how crazy I may or may not have been (like a fox, I guess).  So I feel pretty sure that I would have been able to get into any school I applied to because they were all these sort of strange, hippy-ish boutique-type Arts colleges. Not Harvard, or anything.

However, my mother wouldn’t let me get too far from home because she thought I was out of my fucking mind.

So I wound up at this god awful, huge, antiseptic, mind-numbing  university that was about 25 or 30 miles from where my adoptive father lived. Like he was going to keep his eye on me, or something.

I hated the school. Drank bourbon almost every day instead of going to most of my classes. I lasted about 8 weeks. Quit. Then went to California to allegedly live with the girl I was in love with, but — as loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall — she was no longer in love with me by the time I managed to get there.

But back in Ohio, looking for any kind of a decent singing gig; really wishing I could figure out how to get to NYC instead but having no money and no real job; I was hanging out in this truly seedy Country & Western bar (called the Wagon Wheel) where they didn’t ID me and let me drink bourbon to my heart’s content all night and I was hanging out with all these criminals and much older ex-con truckers  — and my mom finally kicked me out of the house. Even though I was indeed paying her room & board to stay there, which I thought meant that I could do what I wanted, but she said: au contraire.

So. Out I went. Still 19. I got a waitressing job in a diner-truck stop type place off the Interstate. And I was living in a cheap motel that was one parking lot away from the diner. Sleeping with a much older, ex-con trucker at night in my cheap motel room bed — both of us drunk but still managing to fuck. Yes! I consider this one of those high points of my whole life!

Okay — I am going to cut to the chase of this dreadful story, and say that my best friend’s dad back then was a private detective. And after I had tried to kill myself in the motel room — in the throes of it, still, and vomiting everywhere — I left the motel room and managed to call my best friend on a phone. (We didn’t have cell phones yet — not even close.) I was in very bad straits. I did not want to die. I just wanted a life worth living, which is just so different. And my best friend’s dad managed to find me before it was too late. And afterward, they let me come live in their basement for awhile, until I could figure out something better — like, how to get to New York. And that Christmas, her dad bought me a really, really nice pen because he knew I was a writer. I still have the pen, 41 years later. (And I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve moved since then!)

Okay!!! Yes!!!! I digressed.

Well. Right after I fed the cats this morning, I took the trash out to the garbage bin and lo & behold! Robins everywhere!! Wow. It was so cool. They were in the trees. They were flying around. They were on the dead, brown lawns that will soon be super green. It was so cool to see it.

And then after the cats ate and the sun was really up — there were cats sitting at every window, watching the birds again. They get so tense and alert. I just love when they do that. It assures me that summer will soon be back around, too, and every one of those windows will be wide open onto the beautiful green and very lively world of Muskingum County.

I can’t wait.

So, yes! My upstairs toilet is working again. How cool is that? People are just wonderful.

And also yesterday, a friend of mine — a much younger guy that I’ve blogged about many times in the past. I feel certain we knew each other too well in another life and that we were seriously up to no good in it. Anyway. He’s something like 28 years old in this life. And he just moved to a new place. And I wanted to give him a gift but I didn’t want to just give him a plant or something like that, right? I wanted to give him something that would imply that life was awesome and stars are always exploding somewhere.

So I gave him something of mine that I really loved. It’s a very nice (and it was actually expensive) traveling martini kit. It is really the coolest thing. In a little locked leather case. But it’s meant for two. I didn’t buy it for myself — an old flame bought it for me. A man I had many, many vodka martinis with. Many Chesterfield cigarettes with.  And did a whole lot of the other stuff with him, too.  I took really good care of that little martini kit, though. I used to dream that one day, I would fall in love for real and we would travel first class on the Orient Express to Istanbul, maybe on our wedding night or something equally thrilling, and we’d make really  good use of the traveling martini kit.

Not that I think dreams ever really die, but it doesn’t seem super likely to happen. And I don’t really drink anymore, least of all vodka martinis. And I thought — man, this young guy has his whole incredible life ahead of him. Even if he doesn’t ever want to go to Istanbul on the Orient Express, well, a full moon over some amazing starlit field here in the wilds of the Hinterlands is more than good enough when love is involved. Plus, he drinks like a fish. So hopefully he’ll find some pretty girl to love who also drinks like a fish and, voila! He will already have the suave Martini Kit of Love to bring along with him.

Okay!! I gotta scoot. Booty Core awaits!!! Have a wonderful Monday, wherever you are in the world,gang! Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.

“The Criminal Kind”

You got a criminal mind
You got criminal looks
Boy you better look out
You’re gonna get hooked

Don’t you ever feel guilty
When you come up short
Man you better be careful
You’re gonna get caught

‘Cause you’re the criminal kind
You’re the criminal kind
Man what you gonna do?
Where you gonna hide?
They’re callin’ you a sickness, disease of the mind
Man what you gonna do?
You’re the criminal kind

Don’t you ever get tired?
Don’t you ever want to quit?
Yeah it’s been a long time, and you still don’t fit
Dog tags on the mirror, hangin’ down from a chain
Give up little sister, this ain’t gonna change

Yeah, and that little girl you used to know
Just don’t come around no more
Now she ain’t there to watch the door
She don’t wanna die in no liquor store

I hope they all made money, I hope they all get rich
Yeah, I hope they give hell, to every son-of-a-bitch
That put a man on the carpet
Or stuck him out on the line
Whatever let him get a taste of the criminal life

‘Cause you’re the criminal kind
You’re the criminal kind
Man what you gonna do?
Where you gonna hide?
They’re callin’ you a sickness, disease of the mind
Man what you gonna do?
You’re the criminal kind

c – 1981 Tom Petty

Okay, Home Again

Leave a comment

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

Anyway, I wanted to post those links from Friday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She Could Benefit From A Brain Monitor, Don’t You think?

Leave a comment

Jesus, you know?

Not only do I need a keeper (and a handyman) but now I think I could use someone who limits the number of ideas my brain is allowed to have in any given year. Or day. Or perhaps every hour.

I’ve been working on Thug Luckless today and feeling like I don’t want him to just be a porn novel. Because I love this character. (He’s an AI sex robot in a post-apocalyptic town full of jaded, sex-starved broads.) And I’m really unsatisfied with everything I’ve written so far, because I want to rewrite it now with an actual story arc and a character arc, even though I want to keep the overall plot the same.

I simply cannot continue with it without making it a better book.

And then, of course, once I realized that, I wanted to bang my head on my keyboard because that means a whole lot more work — meaning brain work — is going to be involved. So, like, what the fuck?? Right? I have so many fucking projects.

But now that I’ve come to this understanding about Thug nothing less is going to satisfy me. So it’s just frustrating, you know? Especially since I live in a drug-free world and have to rely strictly on the adrenaline I was born with — except for caffeine…

Which reminds me that there is this Nick Cave thing on Instagram and I can’t really figure out what it is. (BTW, this sudden segue has nothing to do with drugs, it has to do with ideas.) Every Saturday, it posts a brief audio clip from one of his In Conversations. And even while I like listening to it (today he was answering a question that had something to do with his ideas), but it makes me ponder where this audio recording comes from. (The last several have been from his Conversations in NYC. With one from Helsinki.)

I’m not sure why I have to ponder absolutely everything. I can’t just, you know, accept a thing at face value and move on with my life. I have to bring everything to a grinding halt and look at it and examine it and wonder: Who’s doing this? Where’d they get this from? How come they’re allowed to upload it? How come I’m following this  — how did I find it in the first place? I have no clue; I only know I’ve been following it for a while. And its tag line is “The Secret Red Hand Files” — so what does that mean?

Anyway. It posts every Saturday. And I thought today was interesting in that I, personally, am getting a little overwhelmed with ideas, here, that could easily take me to the end of my life.

So, as I completely re-think Thug and try now to sort of outline it as actual fiction and not simply regard it as “porn,” I find my mind just wandering like crazy. You know, I start just staring at the wall and suddenly wondering if I could name my Top 5 favorite Tom Petty songs. I’ve never tried to do that before and it turns out that it’s really hard. I would need to have room for at least 10. Because, you know, my Top 4 would probably be “Runaway Trains,” “How Many More Days,” “Rhino Skin,” “You & Me,” and then suddenly I need to cram about 6 more songs in the number 5 slot. And then I’d have to cram the entirety of his album Hard Promises in there, too.

And meanwhile, Thug Luckless is not getting re-written, and the director is texting to schedule a chat with me for Monday so that we can get a plan in place for the first workshop in NYC re: Tell My Bones, and Sandra is texting about the Christmas promotion and my brain starts wondering when I’m going to do those final needed revisions on the play?

So this is where I decide that I’m gonna go take a shower…

Okay. Hope Saturday’s been good for you! And if you’re one of those hardcore football fans (which I am not), I hope your team’s winning. See ya.

Can you say 1979?

Almost Done Being Thankful!!!

Leave a comment

Now it is time to be Merry!

I am of course going to wait to decorate the house & the tree until my birth mom gets here (in 2 weeks). (Her name is Cherie, btw, so I guess I can just call her Cherie here, but then I’ll worry that it’s your first time reading the blog and won’t know who Cherie is, and I’ll end up calling her “Cherie, my birth mom”.) Anyway. I do want to at least switch out the autumnal wreaths on the door for the Christmas ones. And put the Christmas bedding on both of the beds.

At least get started on some stuff. Because I’m feeling a little merry this year!

Just so much better than last year — it’s like I’m not even on the same planet. Which is just a really, really good thing, gang.

I’m going to mention here, that my grandfather (Cherie’s dad), named her Cherie after a girl he fell in love with in Paris, when he was stationed there during WWII.  (She used to call him, “chéri“.)

Mind you, he was already betrothed to my grandmother back in the States. So, naming their daughter after the girl he’d fallen in love with in Paris was a big secret for, like, decades. My grandparents did get divorced early on in my mom’s life. But how unfortunate, right? To have a child with a man and have him secretly name your child after a woman he loved more…

When I was adopted, my adoptive parents changed my name to Marilyn. My adoptive mother wanted to name me “Molly,” but my dad won out; he really wanted to name me Marilyn. When I was 11, he confided in me, one Saturday afternoon while I was in the family room watching an old Marilyn Monroe movie on TV — she had been dead for almost 10 years by then, and I had no real understanding yet of who she’d been. Anyway, my dad passed through the family room, saw what I was watching on TV, smiled sort of wistfully and told me, confidentially, “I named you after that woman — but don’t tell your mother.”

So perhaps this is common? Maybe I should take a poll: Did you name your daughter after a woman you loved more than the child’s mother? (There’s an “Add Poll” thingy here on my blog but I don’t know how to use it…) So I guess just think about your answers quietly amongst yourselves.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog are likely aware that my birth mom named me Dory. I don’t know why, or if there was a specific reason. She was 13 when I was born so there was likely some sort of romantic thing in her head. I don’t know. I’m afraid to ask her because I still worry that if I draw too much attention to myself, she’ll remember that she gave me up and ask me to leave her alone. Much like why I’m still afraid to call her on the telephone and only do it if I absolutely have to. (I’m actually really serious about this. Even though she’s been back in my life now for 34 years, I still worry that she will give me up again and that I will lose her.)

But Dory is the name I actually identify with privately in my head — you know, like, spiritually or something. I don’t go by that name at all in real life. However, I don’t relate to the name Marilyn at all. I just don’t and never have. I think it’s a complicated name, and then, once I understood who Marilyn Monroe actually was, culturally, well, that’s just too much to have to identify with — even though I love Marilyn Monroe, plus it wasn’t even her real name. Still. Just way too much going on there.

Image result for marilyn monroe
Do I actually have to say who this is?

So. I’m guessing I digressed…

Mostly, I’m just kind of feeling a little untethered here; not sure what I want to work on today. I’m feeling like I need to make some progress with Thug Luckless — even though I love that character so much, I can’t emphasize enough just what a commitment it is to write about him. It requires 110% of my concentration, and I’m kind of feeling a little Christmas-y here, today. Not sure I can commit to writing several hours’ worth of porn. I guess we’ll see!

I do want to mention here that the horrible wind storm we had here all day Wednesday– even into the wee hours of yesterday morning– the winds were up to 60 mph. Anyway, it was God’s way of ensuring that the super enormous pile of dead leaves that were in my front yard were more evenly distributed among every single solitary house all up & down First Street. And for this dispensation from Heaven, I am profoundly grateful. Even while the high winds also got me some loose siding on my house, it is a small price to pay for not having to rake any of my fucking leaves! They are, essentially, all gone now! Yay.

Okay, gang, I’m gonna scoot. Put up a wreath or two, change the sheets, think about the day before me and what I might want to do with it!

The breakfast-listening music today was once again “Night Raid” from Ghosteen, which I posted here just the other day. (And I gave up trying to figure out what the song means; all I know is that it’s a beautiful song and I love it, and whatever I might decide it means– well, I will be hopelessly wrong. So I’m just listening to it now without trying to figure out what it means.)

So, since I posted the song here the other day,  instead, I’ll leave you with what I was listening to yesterday while eating my dinner! Alone!

“Scare Easy,” by Tom Petty, from the Mudcrutch album in 2008. (It was also in a movie, but I can’t recall now which one.) Anyway, so I leave you with that.  (The video is a live concert of him reunited with Mudcrutch in 2016 — this is not the Heartbreakers, even though it includes Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench. Mudcrutch was their first band together back in Florida in the late 60s-early 70s.)(In fact, Tom Petty’s final studio album was a Mudcrutch album and not a Heartbreakers album, oddly enough. Coming full circle, as it were. My favorite song of his on the final album is “Beautiful Blue,” which, for me, means that this is the final beautiful song he ever wrote. So I’ll post that, here, too.)

Okay! Have a terrific Black Friday wherever you are in America, and have a nice little regular Friday wherever else you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NKJnRiQI6c

“Scare Easy”

My love’s an ocean, you better not cross it
Yeah, I’ve been the distance and I need some rest
I had somebody once and damn if I lost her
I’ve been running like a man possessed

[Chorus]
I don’t scare easy
Don’t fall apart when I’m under the gun
You can break my heart and I ain’t gonna run
I don’t scare easy for no one

[Verse 2]
Yeah, I’m a loser at the top of my game
I should’ve known to keep an eye on you
Now I got a sky that ain’t never the same
Yeah, I got a dream that don’t ever come true

[Chorus]
I don’t scare easy
Don’t fall apart when I’m under the gun
You can break my heart and I ain’t gonna run
I don’t scare easy for no one

[Verse 3]
Sun going down on a canyon wall
I got a soul that ain’t never been blessed
Yeah, and I’m a shadow at the back of the hall
Yeah, I got a sin I ain’t never confessed

[Chorus]
I don’t scare easy
Don’t fall apart when I’m under the gun
You can break my heart and I ain’t gonna run
I don’t scare easy for no one
I don’t scare easy
Don’t fall apart when I’m under the gun
You can break my heart and I ain’t gonna run
I don’t scare easy for no one

c – 2008 Tom Petty

It Seems That Things Are Getting Better!

Leave a comment

It is a really glorious October day here today.  I’m feeling a little more centered than I’ve felt in well over a week. Balanced, I guess.

Yesterday’s work with Peitor, over the phone, was really just great. Not only productive, but also it was really so much fun going over the script and all our notes for the script and both of us being kind of amazed by it. Some of it is intense, but on varying levels, all of it is funny.  We hadn’t worked on the script since July, so it was just fun to realize just how much work we had already gotten done on it before life went off in various intense directions.

It was also just great to be working with Peitor again and not feeling so isolated. I love writing, and I usually don’t mind that I have to be alone while doing that. But sometimes I really do feel intensely isolated. So it was great to be creative but have someone to laugh with, too.

And the movie is going to be so fucking cool even though it will only be about 8 minutes long.

Okay.

Well, tomorrow would have been Tom Petty’s 69th birthday so there are memorial concerts all over the country for him this weekend and the proceeds go to his 2 favorite charities in LA — mission charities that help the homeless and homeless children, and maybe homeless addicts, or something like that. I don’t really remember the exact charities. But a lot is going on.

I am doing incredibly good about all this. Only an occasional twinge of sorrow and then only when I think of him from the late 70s & early 80s — sometimes that whole Tom Petty era really still gets to me. The loss of that. His incredibly intense and wonderful youth. But overall, I’m good.

Both of his daughters are in my Instagram feed but I don’t usually pay too much attention to either of their feeds because they are both very intense, outspoken women — both artists and extremely political.  I usually find both of them a little disarming. But for some reason, it feels rude to just unfollow them. But this weekend, one of them posted just some horrific stuff involving animals in peril, it was just awful, so disturbing. So I’m guessing she’s still having some really deep issues about her father’s birthday & his death. (Last year, she was intense, as well, but not in this horrific way.) So very public. All of it. I’m sure that has got to make everything so much harder to process.

But right at this very point in time, I’m coping with all my own issues of loss. I really am. I’m feeling that sense of perspective that’s calmer or perhaps more accepting of things? And not just various deaths, but other issues of loss that I’ve had to confront over the last few (extremely difficult) years, especially revolving around my adoptive mother. All of it is easing up now. It really is.

All right. Well I’m gonna scoot. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with two things. A photo of Tom Petty with his granddaughter shortly before he died:

Tom Petty In LA with his granddaughter, Everly.

And a great song of his off of Damn the Torpedoes, their breakout album from 1978.  This is a live  version from that time period, in London, but Tom sings  his original lyrics to the song. On the album, Jimmy Iovine, the producer, made him get rid of the drug references.

All righty! Enjoy what’s left of Saturday, wherever you are in the world, gang. I love you guys. See ya.

 

Adventures in Wild Weight Fluctuations!!

Leave a comment

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

Non parliamo di Trump o del tempo! Parliamo dell’amore!

Leave a comment

Yes, indeed! Why talk about Trump or the weather, when we can talk about love??!!

I’m not really sure what to do about me and my Italian lessons, gang. I do great on all my many quizzes.  But the moment I’m not looking at the app, I pretty much forget every single Italian word I know.

Okay. The Fall Issue of The Exterminating Press Magazine, Heavens Revealed,  is now online.  So, at long last, here is the link to the excerpt they published from my new novel, Blessed By Light. It is Chapter 18: The Guitar Hero Goes Home.

http://exterminatingangel.com/eap-the-magazine/the-guitar-hero-goes-home/

Well, apparently every single solitary soul in Minneapolis follows rules to a “t”.  Because not a single solitary post from inside Nick Cave’s Conversation last night has been posted to Instagram. Only photos from outside the venue have posted. These, of course, are meaningless to me!

However, people did indeed say that the show was incredible. So I’m going strictly on word-of-mouth for this one, gang. It’s really nice, though, that people are finally putting their phones away. (I’m guessing this means that we get to redo the Town Hall show in NYC, and this time have it be phone free!! Yay!! I’m so excited!!)

Okay, well. As I sit here waiting for pigs to fly… (Honestly, I wouldn’t trade the memory of Town Hall for anything, even with its annoyances. Of course, I had that amazing time at Lincoln Center, too, so it’s not like I’ve been deprived of anything.)

I’m doing really good here today, gang. I’m feeling really quiet at the soul level.  I finally slept good. No coughing at all, so I think the cold is at long last gone.

At the breakfast table this morning, listening of course to Tom Petty and thinking about the nature of Life and how it not only ends and moves on but it also constantly circles back in these predictable seasons; I noticed that the sun is taking a while to come up now. At 7 a.m. the sky was just barely light, so it is clearly really fall.  And I am doing okay with it. With the summer being gone, I mean.

I’m feeling like I can handle everything again.  Or maybe even for the first time, ever. I think that it actually is for the first time ever. What I have normally done all my life is cope and survive. And now what I feel like I’m doing is actually living. So that’s pretty cool, right?

I spent several hours hanging out on my bed in the dark last night, being okay with saying goodbye to the wonderful “dead guy”. I didn’t even feel his spirit in my room, as I sometimes do. But I was okay with it. And I was remembering the most amazing summer of my life with him (spent entirely in my bedroom and in my kitchen). And I cannot tell you just how grateful I am that he even came into my world so unexpectedly and so briefly, because it truly changed me.

I was sitting on my bed in the dark, looking out my window at the night and thinking about just how different I actually am now. He taught me so many things about myself. Things I wasn’t happy with and so I changed. I actually changed.

One thing he did was taught me about boundaries, in this very interesting way. Very self-affirming. I had this way of making self-disparaging remarks and it really bothered him that I did that. And I had no clue just how often I did that — said negative things about myself. Early on, he said there were going to be boundaries — things I wasn’t allowed to say anymore.  I simply couldn’t say them; he didn’t want to hear these things coming out of my mouth ever again.

So then, when I would even start to make a negative comment about myself, he would just say, “Boundaries…” and I’d have to shut up. Like, immediately. And that was when I realized just how negative I was about myself, you know? Because he was constantly saying, “Boundaries…” and I’d have to shut up.

And then when I would shut up – you know, sudden dead silence — then I’d be forced to think about what I’d been getting ready to say. And it totally trained me to stop talking that way about myself. And eventually, I  stopped even thinking in that really negative way.

The hardest thing I ever had to do was this other thing he came up with. I had this deep-rooted understanding about my life, as I was growing up, that I was not loved. And from that, I determined that I was never going to be loved. Love just did not exist for me. I knew people felt grateful to me, appreciated me, and all that, and I had a huge capacity to give love, but being loved never entered into it. I could not even imagine being loved. 57 years of that.

My mind could go to some really dark places very quickly back then. My whole demeanor could turn on a dime. Stuff that really alarmed him because he was just not a negative person, at all. I really wanted to be loved. I really, really did. But I literally could not believe that I was. Long story short, whenever I would even begin to go someplace dark or say something that indicated I couldn’t accept that he loved me, I had to make direct eye contact with him and say to him, “Thank you for loving me” ten times!!

I actually really had to do this. He would count up to ten! And I can’t tell you how difficult it was for me to do that those first few times. It was nearly impossible. It was as if my brain was completely re-wiring itself. It was so hard. But as the process went on, it not only became easier, but I actually believed him. And things inside me permanently changed. I finally understood myself to be someone who was loved.

Anyway. That is only a drop in the bucket of things he helped me break free of.  Helped me restore to myself. And I know that it’s important now for me to live my life — to actually live it and not go on to the next realm prematurely. But stay here and get the most joy out of being physical as I can until it’s really time to go.

So. Back to Tom Petty. Back to October — the month that he was born in and died in. I’ll close with the song that ended up really defining him — the song he wrote when he was finally able to process the death of his mom. He allegedly wrote the song in one fell swoop. He woke up at 3 in the morning, hearing it inside his head. Got out of bed, went to the piano, turned on the tape recorder and the entire song just came out; he never had to change a word. Then he went back to bed and woke up his wife, Jane, and said, “Listen to what just came out of me!” And so she listened to the tape and said, “That’s nice, dear,” and rolled over and went back to sleep.

And the rest is history. There isn’t a single Tom Petty fan anywhere who doesn’t know every single word to this song –we could sing it in our sleep. And we process his beautiful mom’s death right along with him, eternally. Forever and ever.

Okay. Thanks for visiting, gang.  Have a great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys! See ya.

“Southern Accents”

There’s a southern accent, where I come from
The young ‘uns call it country, the yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talking, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from

Now that drunk tank in Atlanta, is just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando, if them orange groves don’t freeze
Got my own way of working, but everything is run
With a southern accent, where I come from

For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there, with me

There’s a dream I keep having, where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window, and says a prayer for me
Got my own way of praying, but every one’s begun
With a southern accent, where I come from

Got my own way of living, but everything gets done
With a southern accent, where I come from

c- 1985 Tom Petty