Wow, that Wiesenbad theater was unbelievably beautiful. (Meaning Nick Cave’s Conversation in Wiesenbad, Germany tonight.) It looks like it was just a stunning place. Several people began posting to Instagram right away, and each photo was prettier than the next.
Oh man, there were a couple of photos of him that I just wish I could figure out how to get off of Instagram and onto my phone!!
Well, I made some good progress with Tell My Bones this afternoon. I’m pretty sure now where I want the new song to go (well, the song’s not new — it’s from 1828. But I only recently decided to add it to the play). I think the placement of the song — almost at the end — is going to help make its message that much more pronounced. (Racist “Jim Crow” stuff.)
So I feel encouraged about that.
This evening, I watched Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, finally. I thought it was way too long but it was, nevertheless, really good. I’m not sure how younger people react to the film — people who weren’t alive back then, who don’t remember what it was like, culturally, or how horrible what happened actually was. For me, though, it felt sort of cathartic — possibly even for the whole nation — to have those key members of the Manson Family so brutally killed.
I don’t like violence and, even while I usually really love Tarantino films, his violence is always just off the charts. But in this film, there was a sort of need to see those killers be pulverized. Just that deep-rooted need to see Sharon Tate’s killers utterly destroyed — even for a pacifist, like me. And even though it was just a fantasy. The ending of the film was just sad to me, bittersweet; it brought tears to my eyes. Those poor people, in reality, were just so brutally murdered (as well as the Labiancas) and a Hollywood fairy tale obviously can’t ever erase that.
Anyway, I’m glad I finally saw it. Next in line is either The Joker or Rocketman. Although I’m still watching Ken Burns’ Jazz.
If you saw one of my posts while I was away for the funeral, you saw that I am now the owner of my late stepmom’s large flat screen TV. It turns out that it’s a smart TV, with a built-in DVD player, too. However, my dad neglected to give me the power cord to plug it into the wall. Hopefully he has it in the house somewhere and can just mail it to me. I don’t really like smart TVs — I don’t like any kind of potential eavesdropping devices in my home because I’m paranoid. But we’ll just see how that unfolds.
And my hair stuff did indeed arrive. It burns my scalp a tiny bit, however, it’s already working. I mean, it hasn’t made my hair grow yet, but it did make the roots look thicker within a couple of hours, without making my hair look frizzy. Kind of amazing. So we’ll see how it goes.
If it really does work, I’ll probably have to use it every day now for the rest of my life, but at least it’s not very expensive. Kind of a drop in the bucket when you add up everything else I use each day: eye creme, face creme (separate cremes pournuit et jour!), hand creme, foot creme, cellulite-appearance reducing creme, lip plumping balm!! (Wouldn’t it be cool if writers could apply for “vanity” grants? It costs a lot to keep this aging physique looking 43 and a half years old… Now I have to win a Pulitzer Prize in order to afford to keep looking so fucking youthful and lovely! You betcha!!)
All righty. Have a good night, wherever you are in the world. I did my yoga and now I’m gonna go watch some Jazz. I love you guys. Thanks for visiting. See ya.
Yes, a flock of noisy blue jays landed in the maple tree outside my window and finally got me out of bed.
If you aren’t familiar with blue jays, they screech really loudly.
As you know, I love birds, though. All kinds of birds. And so when the blue jays alighted, I got out of bed to get a better look at them. And they made me feel so happy and then I managed to not get back into bed.
I’m doing a lot better today, though, overall. I had a ton of dreams early this morning that seem to have done wonders for me, emotionally.
At about 3am, I awoke and my mind immediately started slipping into those dark places. I tried to focus on Nick Cave’s Conversations — he’s going to be in Wiesbaden, Germany, tonight. But even that was making me sad because I wished I could be there. (I wish I could attend every one of those things, but I have this issue, you know — it’s called “my life.” I sort of have to actually live it.)
But even though I am so much better at reining in my thoughts before things get too dark — my thoughts are still like a box full of puppies, you know. They keep wanting to get out of the box and scurry off and I have to be keep grabbing at them and putting them back in the box. So, even while I laid awake for over an hour, trying not to feel sad and lost, I did do a good job at not letting it get out of control. I’ve just gotten so much better at it.
Eventually, 3 of the cats jumped up onto the bed and started walking all over me, which I love, and so I calmed down and I drifted back to sleep. But then I had some pretty intense dreams. Full of tears and sorrow and feelings of defeat and helplessness and even a lot rage. It was all family-related stuff, too. (Adoptive family stuff, only. Cousins, aunts, uncles, my mother.)
There was only one person in those dreams that was not related to me — this young black woman I’m friends with, who I’ll say more about in a minute. But my whole family had gathered out on the front lawn at this enormous table (it was my own house — not the one I live in, though) and I was supposed to feed all of them. Well, you know how I am about my dishes, and I was searching for a specific set of dishes that I wanted to put out on the table and I couldn’t find them anywhere. The girlfriend was trying to help me locate the right dishes in all these various cupboards in my kitchen, but I just kept finding the wrong ones.
Then I happened to glance out the window and I saw that my family had just used any old dishes and were starting the meal without me. And I just started sobbing. I felt so frustrated and defeated by all of them. (Which is how I feel about my adoptive family in real life. I haven’t talked to most of them in many years now.)
Anyway, the dreams progressed to something pretty awful — my adoptive mother purposely poisoned one of my cats and I watched her do it and couldn’t stop her. I was so filled with rage and grief that I attacked her.
But you know, dreams full of crying and rage and bewilderment — I woke up feeling really in a much better place. Just worlds better. So I guess I was able to work out a lot of my grief that way. So that’s good.
And I talked to my dad this morning and he sounded really good, as well. I mean, all things considered. He’s going to go play poker — he always plays poker on Tuesday mornings, and then some people are taking him out to dinner tonight. So I felt really good about that. He wasn’t going to be just sitting at home, crying.
He did inform me that all of my step-siblings and their spouses will be flying back this summer to celebrate our birthdays. (I will be 60 and my dad will be 90.) I was kind of stunned by this. I’m not a big birthday-celebrator type of gal. Normally, I like to either be alone, or just with one other person or just something small. But obviously I’m not going to refuse to attend. Unless I have to be in Toronto, but otherwise, I guess I know where I’ll be on my birthday this year. So strange. My stepbrother lives out in Northern California so, honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever see him again now that his mom has died.
Well, on an entirely different topic (my vanity), but involving the girlfriend I mentioned above. At some point, she had either a hair weave or braids or something, that were too tight and she lost a patch of hair, and she used this all-natural biotin-based hairspray that made all her hair grow back, so I bought some and it should be delivered today! I am losing hair all over the place these days.
Until recently, I took biotin supplements, and they do work but they make hair grow all over your darn body, not just your head — which is the only place I wish for more of it to grow. Since I really don’t have time to devote to 24/7 hair removal, yet I am entirely vain, I finally got fed up with having thick, luxurious hair all over my body and I quit taking the fucking biotin. But then, of course, my hair started falling out again (they call it “thinning,” whereas I call it falling out. Everywhere.). So I’m excited to see if this topical stuff will work. We shall see! God knows, my hair is stupefyingly important to me.
Okay. I’ve got the laundry almost finished here. I’m gonna get back now to the new character arc in Tell My Bones. It’s been about a week since I could focus on it.
I leave you with one of my most favorite songs from my wee bonny girlhood — “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady. It’s a song I always think about now when I remember that Conversation with Nick Cave at Lincoln Center last September. (I didn’t actually feel exactly that way after the show was over, but I kinda did.) Seeing all the posts to Instagram from his Conversation last night, made me play this song during breakfast this morning. So enjoy, okay? Thanks for visiting. Hope life’s good, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. See ya.
“I Could Have Danced All Night”
Bed, bed I couldn’t go to bed
My head’s too light to try to set it down
Sleep, sleep I couldn’t sleep tonight
Not for all the jewels in the crown
I could have danced all night
I could have danced all night
And still have begged for more
I could have spread my wings
And done a thousand things
I’ve never done before
I’ll never know what made it so exciting
Why all at once my heart took flight
I only know when he
Began to dance with me
I could have danced, danced, danced all night
(It’s after three now
Don’t you agree now?
She ought to be in bed)
I could have danced all night (You’re tired out, you must be dead)
I could have danced all night (Your face is drawn, your eyes are red)
And still have begged for more (Now say goodnight, please, turn out the light, please)
(It’s really time for you to be in bed)
I could have spread my wings (Do come along, do as you’re told)
And done a thousand things (Or Mrs. Pierce is apt to scold)
I’ve never done before (You’re up too late, please, fix your estate, please)
(You’ll catch a cold)
I’ll never know what made it so exciting
Why all at once my heart took flight
I only know when he (Put down your book, the work’ll keep)
Began to dance with me (Now settle down and go to sleep)
I could have danced, danced, danced all night
(I understand, dear
It’s all been grand, dear
But now it’s time to sleep)
I could have danced all night
I could have danced all night
And still have begged for more
I could have spread my wings
And done a thousand things
I’ve never done before
I’ll never know what made it so exciting
Why all at once my heart took flight
I only know when he began to dance with me
I could have danced, danced, danced all night
I start thinking about something that’s really important to me — for instance, what I’m planning to work on today; what I want to get done. The next thing I know, my mind has drifted far out to sea and a couple of hours are already gone.
I was impressed, though, that this morning, I was able to remember a lot of stuff. Old foreign movie titles, mostly — and sometimes even the names of the directors of the movies. I was, of course, thinking about Baden Baden, Germany pretty much the moment my eyes opened — at 4:44am. (Nick Cave is having a Conversation there tonight.) I seemed to recall that it was a sort of “spa” town.
And then I wondered: what was the name of that movie — I think it was French. And people seemed to be at some sort of resort — was that Baden Baden? And I recalled that at some distant time, Keith Richards had talked very positively about the film in an interview. And it seemed like it was an interview from before he become just a relentless heroin addict — wherein he hardly gave any interviews. (And after he got clean for real, he became the chattiest guy, ever, hence his memoirs being 547-delightful- pages long.)
Anyway, the title of the film came back to me: Last Year at Marienbad. (I sort of got the “bad” part right.) It was directed by Alain Resnais, but I had forgotten that it was written by the truly iconic writer, Alain Robbe-Grillet, which, alone, explains the entire movie. (Even though it was made far back in 1960, you probably wouldn’t want to watch it nowadays while on drugs — it’ll only make you want to shoot yourself; trying to keep up with it. But if you’re totally sober, man, what an interesting premise. And I think it’s what “real life” is actually like — all the probabilities of physical reality, playing out at once.)
Well, anyway, I drifted far afield from Nick Cave in Baden Baden and was then thinking about The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (French, 1972, but directed by Luis Buñuel, who was Spanish). And then recalling Murmur of the Heart and how much I loved that movie (French, 1971, Louis Malle). And then I started wondering if anyone still makes movies anymore that treat incest in a positive, thoughtful way — within an intensely complicated, affluent family. (In this case, mother-son incest, where the dad’s a successful gynecologist.) And I figured, probably not, because nowadays, everything is all about how horrifically we’re all treated, assuming we aren’t just making movies about comic book Super Heroes, fighting against Evil.
I don’t know, it seems kind of regrettable to me that the nature of storytelling in film has changed so drastically — in a way, exploratory thinking itself has sort of been censored. And also this seeming need, at least in the Western world, to be so critical and eager to lay blame on others and on Governments, without wanting to spend too much time wondering what delicate thing we might have learned on our difficult journey…
A thing I don’t seem to be able to ever stop doing…
Anyway, a couple of hours zipped by. I was still laying in bed, in the dark, drinking my coffee. These thoughts just kept coming. Then I forced myself to get out of bed — and stay out of bed — and then found myself sitting on the end of the bed, halfway between being still in my PJs and out of my PJs, and found myself thinking about this nature of probabilities and wondering how many various probabilities could be at play in my own life — you know, if my mom hadn’t given me up for adoption, or if I’d been adopted by different parents, etc. How are those probable lives for me playing out? Are they affecting how I’m thinking right now? Did I have a drastically different past? Am I already dead in some of those probable lives?
And then I found myself on this other path, wherein I decided I wasn’t looking back anymore. You know, not going to think about the past, or if I did think about it, I wanted only to imagine how it would have felt had it gone differently or gone better. But mostly — just don’t think about the past (“that was then, this is now”). Only see here & now and look forward, imagining the best outcomes from now on.
But then almost another hour had passed and I was still sitting there, half-undressed on my bed.
(I also sort of wonder about how to contend with writing two memoirs if I’m not going to think about the past. Could get tricky.)
And here’s a photo of Weenie, sitting on my night table as the sun was coming up:
Weenie at sunrise
Okay, well. My “ex” in Seattle did indeed send me a number of links about the predictions for the Year of the Rat. They seem pretty positive in regards to my career. Actually, really positive about the career. Not so positive about anything else, so I decided to ignore what I didn’t like. But both East & West zodiac systems seem to think my career will go well this year.
One of the Chinese sites predicted that my love life would be very interesting, in that I would fall in love with someone who was exactly like myself and the relationship would be like a Hall of Mirrors. (They said this like it was a good thing.)
Well, that certainly gave me pause, as I tried to figure out what the hell that meant.
I did like the idea of a relationship that was like a Hall of Mirrors — well, I liked the sound of it; I liked the imagery. But I can’t really grasp what it’s supposed to mean, besides constant reflections, back & forth.
And it’s interesting to think that it’s a prediction meant for everybody who was born under the sign of the Rat. (In my case, the Metal Rat.) Every 12 years, a ton of people are born under the sign of the Rat, and all of us are going to be engaged this year in a positive relationship that will be like a Hall of Mirrors. That’s a heck of a lot of people walking around the planet who won’t really know where they’re going, lost in that Hall of Mirrors and all. So I’m guessing life is just going to get interesting for absolutely everyone in 2020, if only by default.
(And isn’t a Hall of Mirrors a Western thing, or did we get that from the Chinese? Do they have Fun Houses? It’s kind of hard to imagine that. I don’t know.) (Although, back when Neptune & Surf was first published, another writer who’d tried to read it said that it was confusing — “like a Chinese Fun House” — with the opium den, the Chinese prostitutes, the Cuban guitar player, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the fire at Dreamland…)
Oh well. Can’t please everybody.
On that note, though, I did manage to eventually get dressed here, brush my teeth and all that. And I do really have to get the day started!! (Although everything just feels different today, you know? Like I woke up in a different reality, somewhat similar to the one I recognized last night, but somehow different. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, though.)
Okay. Have a good Monday wherever you are in the world. (It’s a holiday here in the States — Martin Luther King Day. Although I’ve noticed that now people just call it “MLK.” They don’t say the whole name anymore, or even the “day” part. Just “MLK.” I guess there’s not enough time to say the whole thing anymore because it would give us less time to look at our phones.) All righty. I was back to George Harrison this morning, for whatever reason — probably subconsciously thinking about Jesus and how glorious it felt to see those icons of him in the church at my stepmom’s funeral. So I’ll leave you with that. Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya.
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”:
Some sad and very stressful stuff going on with my stepmom (she’s been immobilized in a nursing home for 11 years due to MS). And my friend who works for NASA who is dealing with advanced cancer finished his chemo and radiation treatments yesterday, so now we wait to find out if it was effective or not. I also have personal things on my mind that I don’t want to blog about (if you can even imagine me not wanting to blog about something personal).
Anyway. It’s getting me off to a slow crawl around here today, even though I’ve been awake for hours already.
Yesterday, though, I took another stab at some of those TV shows that I wish I could learn to like — Mrs. Maisel and Good Omens, specifically. But I’m still not connecting. However, I jumped in at Season 2 of Fleabag and I loved it. So I’m just going to bypass the rest of Season 1 because, for whatever reason, I wasn’t connecting to it, even though I really wanted to. But I’ve already watched most of Season 2 already — it’s just great.
I also bought a copy of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens because everyone in America seems to have read it or is currently reading it and saying it is the best book they’ve read, ever, and that it is painfully beautiful. (God knows, I need a whole lot more beautiful pain in my life, but anyway.) So that arrived and I read the first page, but am not connecting yet because I have the revisions of Tell My Bones at the forefront of my brain right now. Plus, I’m still in the middle of reading my friend’s travel book about the Netherlands.
The new book has come to rest on my kitchen table for now. But this morning, as I was passing through the family room with my cup of coffee, one of the bookshelves in there caught my attention. And like a little light leaping out from a familiar dimension far, far away, Thoughts Without Cigarettes caught my eye.
Thoughts Without Cigarettes is the 3rd book from the left there. The red and black one.
I’ve read all the books in this particular row except that one. It is Oscar Hijuelos’ memoir. I have all of his books. I adore his writing style, his eye for passion and detail. (He died rather suddenly in 2013 at the age of 62.)
When I bought Thoughts Without Cigarettes, I was in Divinity School and could not make any headway in the book because I had to write so many papers every week for school. I usually had to write 4 or 5 intense academic papers a week, literally. Every week. Except for when I was taking that dreadful math class that I barely managed to get a low “B” grade in. During that class, I would spend each week trying not to shoot myself. Otherwise, though, Divinity School was all about writing papers (and reading a ton of academic books about the Old and New Testaments, Christian ethics, faith, devotion, Discipleship, etc., in order to write the papers). And I wanted to really just take my time and enjoy Oscar’s memoir, so I set it aside, waiting for the perfect time.
I have always had this dream that one day, I would have the perfect reclining chair, and the best reading lamp known to man, and I would have time to just sit there and read. Maybe even have a working fireplace, but that’s low down on the list.
For whatever reason, though, I have terrible lighting in this house. And no comfortable chairs at all. I either read at the kitchen table or upstairs on my bed, because both rooms have a lot of windows so there’s plenty of natural light — which also means that reading at night is really hard on my eyes.
So, even though I love books and I love to read — this dream of me and simple, joyful reading becomes so elusive. Also, when you factor in my dysfunctional relationship with Time itself…
Well, as I was passing through the family room before, I stopped and stared at the spine of Thoughts Without Cigarettes and I remembered how much I wanted to read that memoir. And yet here it is, years later, plus I’ve also gone and bought yet another book.
Plus, I had made this weird sort of sudden and inexplicable vow to myself that during the holidays, I was going to finally read Bertram Cope’s Year. (Published in 1919 and written by Henry Blake Fuller. A hundred years seems long enough to wait to read a book…)
I shouldn’t make these weird vows to myself, though. It just adds more pressure, right? Of course I did not read it. I seem to recall being very busy angsting all through the holidays, or something like that. I don’t know. (And, yes, “angst” is an active verb for me.)
But me and books. Aaaarrrrgh.
And now I have this vow for 2020 wherein I’m trying to have at least some sort of new inflow of ideas into my brain. Or perhaps “culturally current” is more the idea I’m aiming at. So here I am again, with limited time and at the crossroads of new vs. not-so-new: Thoughts without Cigarettes (2011); Bertram Cope’s Year (1919) — vs. the Crawdad one, which has already been out since 2018 but counts as culturally current because everyone is still reading it.
Well, I don’t know. I guess we’ll just be like Enya and see what Time eventually tells us about where we’re going and everything else under the sun. (Actually, I can remember clearly, walking home along Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan one chilly & grey afternoon, back when that Enya song was popular, and it was going over and over in my head, and I was thinking how much I really wanted a divorce and I didn’t know what I was going to do about that. Well, Time has indeed told us what I did about that, now that it’s 20 years later…)
But on that note, let me add — I am really loving Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary. (2008). But each episode is nearly 2 hours long, so I can’t exactly binge watch it. It’s going to take me a while to get through it. But it’s so interesting.
Okay. I’m gonna scoot and get this day underway over here. Have a great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world and to wherever the day takes you. It’s a strange sort of foggy, chilly day here. A good day for feeling moody and creative. (But keep in mind that it’s “Only Time” and it sure does gallop away.) Thanks for visiting, gang! I love you guys. See ya.
“Only Time”
Who can say where the road goes?
Where the day flows?
Only time.
And who can say if your love grows
As your heart chose?
Only time.
Who can say why your heart sighs
As your love flies?
Only time.
And who can say why your heart cries
When your love lies?
Only time.
Who can say when the roads meet
That love might be in your heart?
And who can say when the day sleeps
If the night keeps all your heart,
Night keeps all your heart?
Who can say if your love grows
As your heart chose?
Only time.
And who can say where the road goes?
Where the day flows?
Only time.
In the middle of the night, I saw a PR wire thingy on my phone. Julie Strain is not dead, however she is still in advanced dementia. Apparently something her caregiver-partner had posted to Instagram and Facebook had been misunderstood. He pulled the posts and clarified that she is not dead. So I pulled my blog post about it around 5 this morning.
She is only 57, so it is still really sad to contemplate her waning physical state. It was nice, though, to spend some time last evening, re-visiting who she’s been, looking through her photo book and the stuff she sent to me and wrote to me.
She was effing gorgeous, gang. Incredibly sexy, and just as beautiful on the inside.
Oddly enough, last evening, as I was looking through Julie’s photos from 2001 and thinking about all the cool stuff that was going on in my own world when she first got in touch with me, I got an email from another long-time colleague from my Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography days — a well-known erotic photographer in San Francisco. He was trying to re-locate me after yet another change of street address (meaning my move here to the middle of nowhere). And he mentioned that he is now 77 and a half years old!
I thought that was very cute — to still be adding that “half.” But also a little astounding to think that he’s almost 80 now. And the two emails coming at the same time sent me on a little trip down Memory Lane, that’s for sure.
I met, worked with, or corresponded with some amazing people in my career — people who were my heroes in publishing and/or in the sex industry just generally. I guess it’s weird to think that I would have had heroes in an industry like that, but I sure did. Meeting and/or working for Ralph Ginzburg, Barney Rosset, Richard Kasak — they were groundbreaking men and I learned so much about publishing from them.
But the women I got to meet were truly amazing.
Alice Khan Ladas came over to my apartment for lunch and brought me an autographed copy of her book. (I recall that she road her bicycle over to my place because she didn’t live that far from me.) She was one of the pioneering authors of The G Spot — the first book that proved the existence of the Gräfenberg spot (erectile tissue inside the vagina).
Nan Kinney and I became close colleagues and friends — she was one of the founders and publishers of On Our Backs magazine — the first magazine ever to feature genuine hardcore BDSM dyke porn. And she went on to found Fatale Media videos — the first commercial videos to do the same. Genuine hardcore dyke porn — up until then, lesbian sex was portrayed to be about flowers and butterflies and all things gentle with no penetration whatsoever.
Nan was most definitely one of my heroes.
And she also produced an instructional video about female ejaculating — the first video of its kind, ever, that proposed that the G-spot is actually part of the clitoris and that erectile tissue is all over the inside of the vagina, which is why women can ejaculate — a thing most women didn’t know their bodies could do back then, myself included. And she also produced the first commercial instructional video that taught women how to have strap-on sex with guys.
Back then, this stuff was revolutionary. And women were behind all this stuff. Nowadays, strap-on sex with guys is so common that it has its own stupid urban slang name that makes me a little nuts (pegging). But back then, it was all underground, and not what you’d consider socially acceptable in any way whatsoever.
In that realm, though, I met and worked with everyone. Men and women, both, but a heck of a lot of women sex pioneers. True trailblazers.
A highlight of my life was when Xaviera Hollander wrote to me. We corresponded for a while, about one project or another that I was doing, I don’t recall now which project it was, but she was/is a fucking legend, if you’ll excuse the pun. I mean, I was 13 when I would sort of hide in my bed with only a little nightlight to read by and I read The Happy Hooker. This was during that phase when I was trying like crazy to find out what sex was all about — and her memoir definitely explained a whole heck of a lot. Wow. When I got a letter from her, inquiring about a project I was doing all those years later, I was floored. I was so excited.
I really got to interact with some amazing women. I was in conversations with the surrogate mother of one of Michael Jackson’s children — she had diaries of the whole thing and she let me read them. She was considering going public with a book and wanted me to help her write it. (She ended up not wanting to go public, which I thought was a good idea.) I was in on an erotic project Gail Zappa wanted to do (Frank Zappa’s wife/widow). (She ended up not doing that, either, although I no longer recall why — but it was really cool at the time.)
Women from all over the world would seek me out. Erotic filmmakers, photographers, writers, painters.
Women and their erotic minds are just pretty darn awesome, and I just loved having an entire career that promoted that. Another highlight of my literary life — Dorothy Allison, twice a National Book Award finalist, specifically for that amazing novel Bastard Out of Carolina. When Anjelica Houston directed a movie adaptation of it for HBO, I was initially so excited, because I couldn’t wait to see how they would bring that amazing book to the screen. But I was so bitterly disappointed with it. It became all about violence; all the eroticism was eviscerated from the story. I guess because no one was comfortable admitting that young girls could have obsessively erotic lives inside their heads, that might eventually spill out into their actual lives and that could force a rape to explode into reality. (Sounds like my whole life, right?)
They left that whole side of the story out of the movie and it really angered me. To me, it felt like censorship.
I knew that a lot of readers had problems with Dorothy Allison’s earlier works being too sexually graphic and they considered her earlier works offensive aberrations. When I was in a position to include her work in one of my anthologies, I wrote and asked her if I could have permission to reprint a short explicit memoir she’d written years prior for On Our Backs, her memoir about anal fisting with butch dykes. And I guarantee you that when she handwrote me a letter, giving me permission to reprint that — even though she was at the height of her “traditional” literary career — wow; that letter arriving in my mailbox was another highlight of my whole life.
Well, anyway. The whole publishing industry eventually hemorrhaged and tanked and had to be completely streamlined to make as huge a profit as they could, while contending with the disruption brought on by the Internet. So it all changed. But it was awesome while it was happening. You know — meeting these women in person, or receiving handwritten letters in the mail that, you know, you can treasure for all time. (I have letter-exchanges with Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oats. I would just pick up my pen and write to these women! Because I loved them and wanted to publish them. And they would write back and say yes! And Rosemary Daniell — in Savannah. Man, I adored her work. A Sexual Tour of the Deep South was a poetry collection that blew my mind. I wrote to her, too, and she not only wrote back, but when she came to NYC for a reading, she invited me out afterward for dinner and drinks! Jesus. I was so fucking excited. I eventually got to publish her, too.)
Anyway. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that one of my famous female forebears is Louisa May Alcott. Most people only remember her as the writer of Little Women. (She also wrote Little Men, which became a TV series in Canada for awhile in the mid-90s, and Sandra Caldwell, the actress I work with now on theater projects, had the recurring role of — the black maid.) Anyway, Louisa also wrote very racy men’s stories to help pay the bills — stories full of sex and hard drinking and smoking– under the androgynous pen name of A.M. Barnard. I like to think that what I’ve been able to do with my own writing career has helped maybe bring that whole side of Louisa — spiritually — out of the closet.
Okay, well, on that note. I need to get back to work here on the revision of Tell My Bones. Unfortunately, it deals with the whole Jim Crow era stuff, which of course is some ugly, ugly stuff. The screenplay version I wrote dealt with it much more than the theatrical adaptation has up until now, so I know it’s necessary. So that’s what I’m doing here.
Have a terrific Tuesday, though, wherever it takes you and wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.
For some reason, last evening, I kept wondering about Wayne (my ex-husband in NYC). I knew he had left for a trip to Cartagena, Colombia, at some point right after the New Year. But I wasn’t sure exactly when, or how long he was going to stay there, or when he was planning to be back in the city. And since I am so intensely pre-occuppied with my own brain, 24/7, time becomes sort of elusive. To put it mildly.
Anyway, I found that I kept thinking about him, so around 8:30 last night, I texted him, to see if he was home yet from his trip.
He texted right back and said: “Oddly enough, I landed 5 mins ago. Waiting to clear Customs. Talk soon.”
How weird, right? That I was so in sync with him at that moment and we aren’t even married anymore, and haven’t been for a really long time. Plus, he travels a lot and I’m usually only vaguely aware of his various journeys.
Well, for whatever reason, I was on his wavelength last night, though I have no idea why.
It’s so strange how both of my marriages seem to go on forever — in a weird sort of way. At least “the relationships” of them do; the legalities of them don’t.
Similarly, my birth mom’s marriage has gone on forever, even though they actually are still legally married. However, they’ve been separated since 1978. Then my mom was with another man — this really wonderful farmer/trucker in Appalachia, with a wicked sense of humor and a rather interesting libido. He favored a magazine called Hogtied, which had nothing but photos of girls wearing only white panties, tied up with rope. It seems that tying up girls with rope was his thing. (Yes — re: me and my birth mom. That apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.)
Anyway, he was wonderful, and so funny, but he died — after he and my birth mom had been together for almost 20 years. And he’s been dead now since 2005.
But now, over these last few years, my birth mom and her (legal) husband have started spending a ton of time together again. He lives in some sort of senior living place now, and she goes over with a 6-pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes, and they drink together and smoke together, and he always tells her that he wants her to move back in with him…
He’s 82 now. It’s awesome, right? He never stopped loving her, even though she left him a long, long time ago. (He’s the father of my 2 half-sisters and my half-brother.) I met him once, back in the mid-1980s. My sister & brother took me over to meet him. He was really nice to me. This was back before anyone knew who my birth dad was and he said to me, “It means a lot to your mom that you came back. I’m not your dad, but if you ever need anything, you let me know.” That meant a lot to me.
From what everyone has said, he has always been a pretty intense alcoholic. But he appeared to be sober at the time I met him. He was living alone in a trailer back then. His mom lived in a house on the same property, though. It was daytime when I met him but it was really dark inside the trailer. He was sitting at his kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. At the time, he was only 48 years old but he looked really beaten up by life.
He married my mom when she was only 15 because he got her pregnant. He was 10 years older than she was, but he was in love with her from day one. He’s Cherokee. This is my favorite photo of him, although his hair looks really light here, and it’s actually coal black. Oddly enough, the photo was taken one month before I was conceived. He didn’t know my mom yet.
And for no reason whatsoever, here’s a photo of my mom’s parents, from before she was born. It’s not my favorite one of them, but I like it because it’s odd — it appears to be almost midnight, and they seem to be celebrating a new stove. I don’t actually know…
My maternal birth grandparents in the mid-1940s. They divorced before I was born, and my grandfather there was the one who put me up for adoption behind my mom’s back. She never forgave him. But I wound up knowing both of my mom’s parents for many, many years before they died.
Well, I guess that’s my little trip down memory lane here this morning! I’m almost finished with the laundry and I’m gonna get back to the revisions here of Tell My Bones.
Have a really great Monday, wherever you are in the world!! For some inexplicable reason, this was my breakfast-listening music for this morning. I mean, I do love this song — I always have — I just have no idea why I was listening to it today. And then wound up writing about all these marriages that went astray… But here it is, from 1971, Betty Wright’s awesome hit about why women are to blame for their man’s infidelity!! “Clean Up Woman.” All righty, then!! I love you guys. See ya.
“Clean Up Woman”
A clean up woman is a woman who
Gets all the love we girls leave behind
The reason I know so much about her
Is because she picked up a man of mine
Jumpin’ slick was my ruin
‘Cause, I found out all I was doin’
Was making it easy for the clean up woman
To get my man’s love, oh yeah
Just making it easy for the clean up woman
To get my baby’s love, uh-huh, um-hum
I took this man’s love and put it on a shelf
And like a fool I thought I had him all to myself
When he needed love I was out having fun
But I found out that all I had done
Was made it easy for the clean up woman
To get my man’s love, uh-huh
Yeah, that’s what I did, I made it easy for the clean up woman
To steal my baby’s love, oh yeah
The clean up woman will wipe his blues away
She’ll give him plenty lovin’ 24 hours a day
The clean up woman, she’ll sweep him off his feet
She’s the one who’ll take him in when you dump him in the street
So take a tip, you better get hip
To the clean up woman ’cause she’s tough
I mean, she really cleans up
I’m still in bed here. It’s still dark out. I have a cat walking around on top of the blankets (!!) — I think it’s Doris.
Anyway, I’m going to be brief. Just wanted to say that late yesterday morning, it all came together! The new story arc for that one character in TellMyBones.. I am so excited, gang! It kind of blew me away!
It is based on the notes I was scribbling on Thursday while watching those two different shows, but I really, really didn’t see this coming. How the twist in the story would express itself— the details of it.
It adds a whole new layer of darkness, sort of eerie. And I’ve added a new song! I’m really so happy with what has come to the surface. It brought an additional complexity to the whole play. I just can’t believe it — how unexpected this character has become!
All right, well, maybe I’ll blog again later. Not sure! Meanwhile, have just a wonderful Sunday, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting. I hope this isn’t full of typos. It’s dark in here and I don’t have my glasses on ! Okay. . I love you guys. See ya.
Well, work with Peitor on the micro-script yesterday was so fun. Plus, it was just one of those sessions where we got so much accomplished — even though, you know, we are still nowhere near done.
Yes! An 8 minute film. And we’ve been working on it for a year now. And still nowhere near done with the script (because we’re going shot by shot).
I still don’t know why Peitor was in Dallas yesterday. From the background sounds, he was clearly in a hotel room with Graham. I could hear the television and I could hear room service arrive with Graham’s breakfast. But when I said to Peitor, “I can’t remember why you’re in Dallas right now.” He replied, “I can’t remember either!”
Then he just laughed it off and said, “I just want you to know, Marilyn, how much I love working on this script with you. It always feels like we’re kids, having a sleepover, you know? The parents are sound asleep in their rooms, but we’re still up, in bed with a little flashlight, creating our make-believe world.”
I’m not sure if that’s what my immaturity brings to the table, or if he and I share equally in that, but I thought it was kind of telling. You know, me still being 12 and all that. I think it’s rubbing off on him. (I’m 59 and he’s 62.)
Well, I discovered yesterday that he’s been actively pitching the logline for Lita’s Got to Go to people he meets, or knows, in LA and in London, so I guess it’s okay to post it here. I’m actually the one who was supposed to create the official website months ago (for Abstract Absurdity Productions), but it was back when I was putting up what I thought was going to be a simple, one-page blog for In the Shadow of Narcissa, and that wound up being a little task from Hell. So after that, I took a break. Because the site for Abstract Absurdity has to be a little more complex than a one-page blog…
And now here it is, months later, and I still haven’t done it. Anyway. Here is the current logline:
“Lita’s Got to Go is a short abstract absurd comedy in 7 acts about a psychologically unstable woman who becomes obsessed when she senses her housekeeper has been inappropriate with her furniture.”
And it is heavily informed by Polanski, Antonioni, Hitchcock, and Bergman, and the Bauhaus school. And it is possibly going to be in Swedish with English subtitles, although we keep vacillating on that. (Regardless, there are only about 5 lines of dialogue, total.)
So yesterday was good!
Although Nick Cave went a whole week without sending out a Red Hand Files letter. I hope it’s not connected to the catastrophic fires going on in Australia. (Perhaps maybe he simply stumbled upon a latent inner ability to take a vacation? The In Conversations resume in Europe in about a week, and then there’s the Ghosteen tour of Europe coming up, which I’m guessing will sort of expand into South America and Central America and North America and well, Australia — one would hope. )
Anyway, here’s something I found truly remarkable yesterday: A huge lit billboard along the main highway here – yes, out here in the middle of rural-nowhere Muskingum County, Ohio — asking people to donate to help Australia. Plus, it was worded in such a way that you could easily see where to make your donations, even if you were zipping past at 95 mph, as I usually am!
I think a genius designed that billboard.
[GENIUS (speakingin the boardroom): “Twelve-year-old girls will likely be driving past this billboard really fast, so let’s make sure the URL is easy to see and to remember!”]
Well, okay, it’s Saturday morning. Quite mild here. A little bit of sun making it’s way into the sky. Looks like a pretty day. I’m gonna get to work here on rewriting that character arc in Tell My Bones.
(Oh, wait — let me give you a head’s up about a fellow blogger, Peter Wyn Mosey, a writer from Wales, who has a new webzine launching today: The Finest Example. Stories, art, & poems. Visit, follow, & submit work!! I’m going to!)
Okay, as much as I hesitate to do this too often, lest you start to think I’m living in some sort of time warp here, I’m leaving you with my breakfast listening music from today, which was once again Rudy Vallee — but a different song from the previous days. This one was truly a smash hit. It’s super catchy, too. “You Oughta Be In Pictures” from 1934. I love this song.
It occurred to me during breakfast, that this was the first time I was listening to the song in a really old house — you know, that would have likely had a radio back in 1934 that probably actually broadcasted this song! It was interesting to think about that. The life of radio waves, sound waves, space & time.
All righty, well, thanks for visiting!! Enjoy your Saturday, wherever you are in the world! I love you guys. See ya.
(And here’s another site, this one in LA, with a detailed list of links on how to help firefighters, the Red cross, and wildlife in Australia.)
“You Oughta Be In Pictures”
(Rudy Vallee’s extended version)
As I look at you
A thought goes through my mind
What a marvelous find
You’d make upon the screen
I am proud that I have you
Right by my side
But I’d be satisfied to share you
With the public to be seen
You ought to be in pictures
You’re wonderful to see
You ought to be in pictures
Oh, what a hit you would be
Your voice would thrill a nation
Your face would be adored
You’d make a great sensation
With wealth and fame – your reward
And if you should kiss the way you kiss
When we are all alone
You’d make ev’ry girl and man a fan
Worshiping at your throne
You ought to shine as brightly
As Jupiter and Mars
You ought to be in pictures
My star of stars
You’re lovely as a Crawford
Like Davies you are gay
You surely should be offered
A starring part right away
You’re sweet as a Gaynor
And you’re as hot as the gal named West
You’d surely make even Garbo jealous
If you took a movie test
You ought to dress like Tashman
And ride in motor cars
You ought to be in pictures
My star of stars
c – 1934 DANA SUESSE, EDWARD HEYMAN, & RUDY VALLEE
It’s already 7:30am and it’s still dark out — it’s just gloomy and rainy.
The kind of morning where I want to just stay in bed until it becomes afternoon.
However, Peitor wants to get to work early on the micro-script today, so I am out of bed and, you know, at least trying to get the brain in gear here.
I had a really interesting dream before waking up (I’ve actually been awake since 4:30). I was visiting someone — people I knew really well in the dream but now I don’t know who they were. But they had a lot of pets — dogs, cats and domesticated raccoons.
They were all just so beautiful and well cared for. They all had really silky, beautiful fur.
A guy that I knew really well (can’t recall now who that was, either), came to visit me at that house and we were going to go to sleep on the kitchen floor. It was a wood floor, and had some straw scattered on it. But I put down a bunch of blankets, and as soon as we laid down, all the animals were all over us — wanting to play and to snuggle and to be petted, even the raccoons. So much love. It was overwhelming but really beautiful.
Then all of the sudden, I was with my adoptive mother and she was saying that she had to round up all the animals and take them to the vet because they needed to be treated for fleas. But I knew for sure that none of them had fleas. They were really well cared for, but she refused to listen to me.
After I woke up and was downstairs getting breakfast for 7 beautiful, healthy non-flea-ridden but nonetheless feral cats (and my beautiful, healthy, non-flea-ridden, non-feral self) I was thinking that the dream was maybe about that saying: lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas.
My adoptive mother, in real life, never liked any of my friends or any of my boyfriends, and could barely tolerate any of them, usually not allowing them to even come into the house — even though I tried in vain to convince her that they were all really nice. (She did like Wayne, my 2nd husband, but that was about it.)
I’m not sure what the dream might really mean beyond that, except to also highlight my boundless capacity for loving animals. And perhaps my not differentiating between domestic and wild animals. I don’t really know. (Oh, and my wanting a huge amount of love, but that’s just a given with me, 24/7. I don’t need a dream to tell me that.)
Well, here’s some good news: I got the electric bill that covers the weeks of Christmas decorations and New Year’s and it is just amazing how affordable these energy-efficient Christmas lights are, you know? I can remember how, in the old days, you wouldn’t think of leaving your tree on all night unless it was Christmas Eve. Because the cost of running all those lights was ridiculous — well into the hundreds of dollars for the month of December. Now, after the whole month of having all sorts of Christmas lights on all over the house, often all night long — the bill was only $13 more than it usually is. It’s just astounding.
In the old house, I replaced a very old furnace, which would cost about $700 a month to run in the peak cold days of winter. And after the new furnace — $75 a month. Maybe as much as $100 if it got really, really cold.
Just amazing, right? It’s good to touch base with these kinds of achievements because it helps us see that things do get better. Even the ozone is actually healing itself now. Things change for the better; people do care about the Earth. It sometimes doesn’t feel that way, though, in the thick of the crisis.
Well, I did watch Doubt yesterday and I got a bit of a thread for my character’s arc in Tell My Bones. But when I was watching the first segment of Ken Burns’ Jazz, I got a lot more intimations. Took a lot of notes about what I was feeling, but still haven’t honed in on the complete story for that one character. So I guess it just needs to gestate for a bit. But I do get the sense that once I nail down her story, it is going to add a really intense thread throughout the whole play, so I feel excited about what’s coming.
Again, I have to thank that Director for his instincts. It’s not like he’s ever told me “such and such needs to happen in the plot,” because the plot was already there, but he knows what the overall result has to feel like, and from that I’ve been consistently able to really open up the theatrics of the play, and the arcs of the main characters. It’s been wonderful.
Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I courted this director for this specific project for a couple of years — and he didn’t know me from anyone on Earth. So I would encourage you to follow your instincts when you feel that strongly about a person (or maybe even a place — I had to beg 2 different realtors 5 times to take me through this house here that I now own and am so happy in. The realtors felt the house was a lost cause, without knowing that the owner had been doing a lot of work to it to get it to finally sell.).
Anyway. When you feel that strongly about someone or something, follow it through. Even if people think you’re maybe annoying or a little nuts. (I don’t want to ever be thought of as annoying, but I’m kind of used to people thinking I’m nuts and yet my overall track record (specifically as a niche-market writer) is pretty darn good.)
Okay! I gotta scoot here! I need my brain in work-mode for when Peitor calls here in a bit. For some reason, he’s in Dallas, Texas, right now, so he wants to take advantage of the time zone — he’s only an hour behind me right now instead of the usual 3 hours. So who knows? Maybe we’ll get a ton of work done on the script and I’ll still be able to get right back into bed!!
Have a great Friday, wherever you are in the world. Try to stay hopeful, encouraged, in love with your life. And I’ll try to do the same over here! Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with the music from last evening, since this morning I was back to Rudy Vallee and I just posted that one here the other day. All righty. I love you guys. See ya.
“What Is Life”
What I feel, I can’t say
But my love is there for you anytime of day
But if it’s not love that you need
Then I’ll try my best to make everything succeed
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
What I know, I can do
If I give my love now to everyone like you
But if it’s not love that you need
Then I’ll try my best to make everything succeed
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
What I feel, I can’t say
But my love is there for you any time of day
But if it’s not love that you need
Then I’ll try my best to make everything succeed
Tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
Oh tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
What is my life without your love
Tell me, who am I without you, by my side
[fade:]
Oh tell me, what is my life without your love
Tell me who am I without you by my side
Marilyn's Room 