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It Would Seem That All You Need Is Love

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Once again, I can’t tarry too long on the blog.

Getting ready here to watch Doubt because there’s a character arc I want to pay attention to. I think it’s going to help me find my way with the character in Tell My Bones who needs a better arc. I have a vague feeling what’s motivating her (the character) but it hasn’t solidified yet for me.

So I’m gonna watch that movie here, momentarily.

I slept great. Although I woke up feeling a  tiny little bit depressed. So I’m battling that. Well, not really “battling,” but trying to focus instead on things that won’t let the depression gain any traction, any momentum.

The first line of action was to listen to a bunch of songs by George Harrison, of all people. Not that there is anything at all wrong with George Harrison, he’s just never been my “go to” for anything, really. Even though I have some of his records and know a ton of his songs…

Anyway. I’m all about allowing the impulses to flow. So I flowed George and it actually really helped me direct my thoughts into a different space. So the impetus of George was a success.

On a sad note… I have watched all the episodes of Black Books that there were to watch.  Darn it. That was a fun show, which required absolutely nothing from me except mindless watching and quite a bit of laughing.

Even though I’m sort of interested in watching Modern Love, mostly (well, only) because I love John Slattery, I’ve decided instead to watch Ken Burns’ Jazz on PBS first.  Because just the opening credits, you know — they completely pulled me in.

Image result for ken burns' jazz
“Gumbo” season 1, episode 1; New Orleans Jazz

But first, Doubt. Then a bunch of episodes of Jazz. Then write a bunch of masterpieces. Then have lunch…

Well, perhaps I expect too much, too soon. But that’s the overall game plan for maybe the upcoming week? (Well, assuming your week begins on Thursday, as mine apparently does.)

I don’t know about your zodiacal forecast, but the Lunar Eclipse we are about to embark upon is going to highlight my relationships — in a liberating way. So that’s exciting. But it’s not just a Lunar Eclipse, it’s a “Stellium.” Meaning that the Sun and Mercury are also converging and Saturn and Pluto are aligning with each other. This is supposed to trigger a new cycle for the whole world — which it would seem like we need.

So I’m psyched about that. (I actually am.)

This morning, while listening to George Harrison’s much-lesser-known song “I’d Have You Anytime,” I experienced a sort of spiritual visitation from the man who came into my life so beautifully and so briefly and then died — he visited me this morning. I know it was real. It was so strong, it brought intense tears to my eyes. I haven’t felt his spirit in a few months, it seems. So it was unexpected and so beautiful. So maybe that was part of me and my “liberating relationships” during the Lunar Eclipse-Stellium thing. It would seem like it, right? Especially since he put in his appearance during such an obscure song that imparts an idea of so much love.

Well, it made me intensely happy — but deep down at that level where beauty and tears completely intertwine with happiness.

Oddly, on that note, I’m gonna go watch Doubt. I hope you enjoy Thursday, wherever it leads you and wherever you are in the world. I love you guys so much. In fact, “I’d Have You Anytime.” Thanks for visiting. See ya.

“I’d Have You Anytime”

Let me in here, I know I’ve been here
Let me into your heart
Let me know you, let me show you
Let me roll it to you

All I have is yours
All you see is mine
And I’m glad to hold you in my arms
I’d have you anytime

Let me say it, let me play it
Let me lay it on you
Let me know you, let me show you
Let me grow upon you

All I have is yours
All you see is mine
And I’m glad to hold you in my arms
I’d have you anytime

Let me in here, I know I’ve been here
Let me into your heart

c – 1970 George Harrison, Dylan Robert

And so the plot thickens!

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The meeting re: Tell My Bones was really great. But it became apparent that I need to fix that character arc before the table read happens. So I guess I don’t have to tell you what I’ll be focusing on around here, posthaste.

But the good-ish thing, is that I actually spoke to Sandra on the phone after the meeting (yes, the woman I can almost never reach on the phone, ever), and she has to start rehearsals in Canada in early February, so I can’t imagine I’ll be going to NYC before March, maybe even as late as April, so this gives me a little more time.

Plus, if the table read is in March or April, this gives me the chance to drive myself completely nuts over whether I want to fly to NYC or drive! Yes, my never-ending conundrum. If I had to be there in February, I wouldn’t risk driving across Pennsylvania, but March is not quite so dicey. (I know — I made myself promise that I would quit doing all that driving to NY and just fucking fly into LaGuardia, for chrissakes…)

Anyway. The really good news is that the Christmas card campaign was a complete success.  We didn’t send out very many cards at all. They were highly targeted towards people I actually want to work with. You know, ideally.  And judging by the numbers between the week of Christmas and today (we don’t have access to any names), it looks like basically everyone who received a card checked out the Tell My Bones web site, and a whopping 88% of those same numbers clicked on the excerpt of the play!

This is an astoundingly great result. I don’t have the numbers yet on how many people actually signed up for the newsletter, though. Still, it’s an awesome result. And I had handwritten personal notes to each person, introducing them to my play, who didn’t know me from anyone else on Earth. So it was an investment of (hand-cramping) time and money that really paid off.

I left the meeting today feeling really encouraged about those numbers.

Now, of course, I have to fix that character arc. Without having it be a massive rewrite of the play.

Well, Nick Cave (and Warren Ellis) posted to Instagram today. However, it was for a sad reason — the catastrophe going on in Australia and asking people to do what they can to help. (They are donating $500,000.)

I don’t know where you live, but here is a NY Times piece from 2 days ago, giving links to places you can donate to, if you’re not really sure how you can help.

I give to wildlife charities, specifically, if you are interested in that — which are here and here. (Although the first link, International Fund for Animal Welfare is doing a massive drive right now to help Australian wildlife.)

Anyway, it is quite sad. But it still counts as a personal Nick Cave Instagram post…

Okay, so that was today! At least some really good news for the play. I’m feeling on a much more even keel than I felt this morning, for sure. But now I have to seriously focus on that one character and get her story figured out.

All righty, then! I’m gonna go eat something. Maybe watch Black Books. Have a nice evening, wherever you are in the world (assuming it’s still evening there, of course!). Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys, See ya.

Another Day Lurches Forward!

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Oh man. You know you’ve wandered into new waters when you awaken at 3:48am and all you can think about, even though your eyes aren’t even open, is Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home — and it’s accompanying Tony-Award winning Broadway musical, and specifically the song about the keys.

(And by “graphic” here I mean, comic book — in case you aren’t familiar with her work. And it deals with her childhood growing up in a seriously dysfunctional family. And the song about the keys is about the young Alison’s first attraction to a butch dyke.)

I got up to pee and I refused to really become awake yet, although I was reminded about the ladybug from last night, and knowing it was “a sign” — and I was curious now to know: a sign of what?

And the Fun Home thing made me think that the ladybug was a sign that life isn’t simply a linear thread; there is so much more at play, in all the dimensions of a single moment. Or even a segment of life. And that it was a sign to just keep making it into art. Just keep doing that.

And then I went back to sleep and I slept for about 5 more hours. Honestly. The sun was way up when I got up.

After I fed the cats and myself, I went up to my desk and opened the file for Tell My Bones, because I have that meeting with the Director of the play early this afternoon. But you know what? I couldn’t even read past the first few lines.

I know the play — I wrote it. I don’t need to read it again while in this emotional stupor; this feeling like I’m wearing ten tons of emotional armor that is weighing me down unbelievably right now. So the meeting will go better if I just go to the meeting and take notes…

So I focused instead on combing my hair — a thing I realized I hadn’t done since I washed it on Monday (!!). Jesus. And then I put on my makeup so that my eyes look way, way lovelier than my soul feels. And it’s sort of helping pull me into a better place.

You know, I’m also — like everyone — weighed down by the world. The horrible fires, the poor animals, the earthquakes, the missile strikes.

I don’t blog about it because my blog is not about that. But, obviously, I am affected by all of that, too.

But I am drinking my coffee and slowly feeling myself coming out from under the weight of everything, and focusing on art. My own art, I mean. Because, overall, I honestly think it’s okay if all this stuff that perplexes me about my dysfunctional life or makes me feel like vomiting once in awhile is leading to interesting art. For art’s sake. It’s okay. I seriously mean that.

I don’t actually understand what life is — I do know, though, that the quality of being physically alive is only a small part of it. Yet, while we’re physical, we have the incredible opportunity to focus, you know? To bring to clarity whatever it is we choose. We can focus on the bad or the good — or both, and thus broaden what it is we thought we were looking at until it becomes this amazing thing. In my case, a written piece of work of some kind.

I know that’s true about life. The rest of it, I don’t really understand. And I’m at that point where I don’t think I even need to try to understand anymore. Just look for the beauty in the moment and find it and that becomes enough. For me, anyway.

Well, in keeping with the thought that I was only going to take notes at the meeting today, I went in search of the notebook that I have my Helen LaFrance notes in, and I found it and guess what??!! It had a pen clipped to it!! Jesus Christ. How delightfully predictable am I? (Before I found the notebook, I was wondering what I was going to do about a pen, because I’m running low on pens around here, and I was thinking: maybe Kevin will have a spare pen I can borrow… And then, voila! My obsessive behavior re: pens clipped to small notebooks had all the bases covered for me.)

Okay. I gotta scoot. I want to eat something before I head off to the meeting. I hope you’re having a good morning thus far, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting! I leave you with the song about the keys from the Broadway musical version of Fun Home. I love you guys. See ya.

“Ring of Keys”

[ALISON]
You didn’t notice her at first, but I saw her the moment she walked in
She was a delivery woman
She came in with a hand cart full of packages
She was an old-school butch

[SMALL ALISON]
Someone just came in the door
Like no one I ever saw before
I feel…
I feel…

I don’t know where you came from
I wish I did
I feel so dumb
I feel…

Your swagger and your bearing
And the just right clothes you’re wearing
Your short hair and your dungarees
And your lace up boots

And your keys, oh
Your ring of keys

I thought it was s’pposed to be wrong
But you seem okay with being strong
I want…to…
You’re so…

It’s probably conceited to say
But I think we’re alike
in a certain way
I…um…

Your swagger and your bearing
And the just right clothes you’re wearing
Your short hair and your dungarees
And your lace up boots

And your keys, oh
Your ring of keys

Do you feel my heart saying “hi”?
In this whole luncheonette
Why am I the only one who sees you’re beautiful?

No, I mean…

Handsome!

Your swagger and your bearing
And the just right clothes you’re wearing
Your short hair and your dungarees
And your lace up boots

And your keys, oh
Your ring of keys

I know you
I know you
I know you

c – 2015 Jeanine Tesori & Lisa Kron

Don’t Puke — It’s Art!

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Jesus Christ — what a fucking day.

I have spent the entire day at my desk, working on In the Shadow of Narcissa (the memoir about my early childhood). Or trying to.

Primarily, I was just going to reformat it today from web pages into a traditional manuscript format, but then I realized that I need to re-write the opening segment somehow, because it sounds more like a prologue right now. I’m not sure if I want to keep it as a prologue. Ideally, I want it to have the present-tense approach that the other segments have except that the first segment happens when I am only about 18 months old. And even though I remember when it happened, I’m not sure how to write from the POV of myself at 18 months old.

When I gave it a try, though, I discovered that putting myself directly into that headspace of myself at 18 months (the first time my adoptive mother physically abused me) really upset me and I spent several hours after that just wanting to throw up.  And wondering why the fuck am I writing this damn thing? Why revisit all this? But also feeling like it’s my life and all I really know how to do is create from my life. And for whatever reason, I feel it’s really necessary for me to write this little book.

My childhood — it had moments that were so beautiful. And they were the last beautiful moments I had until I got well into my 50s. Which, of course, sucks. So I want to write this darn book. Process the whole darn thing. But it also kept making me feel like vomiting.

And I also realized today that Thug Luckless is me, as well — in the sense that he’s this robot on the outside that becomes this deeply sentient thing on the inside, through sexual contact with a whole fucked-up town, whether he wants it or not. You know — I saw weird parallels with my own life. I’m okay with that, though, because he’s a character.  So I can “act out” through him. Whereas the Narcissa book is a memoir. It’s me. When I first began writing it this past summer, it didn’t bother me like this. And it’s really just this opening segment that is upsetting me so much today.

As the sun was going down, even though — or maybe because — it was getting pretty chilly out, I decided to take a walk. Just get air, you know? To stop this desire to vomit.

And, my god, I love this town out here in the middle of nowhere. First off, I headed directly across the street from my house and then stopped in the middle of the train tracks. I looked west and saw the sun going down in the distance, over those tracks that just go on and on through the rest of the entire state. It was so fucking beautiful. All the old houses in stark outline along the tracks. And the trees. The clear sky with those streaks of amber and orange, sinking way down.  And the tracks receding forever into it. A couple stars coming out. Amazing. I wished I’d brought my phone to take a picture.

And then everywhere I looked as I walked, I was just struck by the age of this town and how stunning it looked at that specific hour of twilight. Everything so darn quiet. Such old houses. Such unexpected architecture. And the sidewalk is so close to the houses that you can  look right into them. (A lot of the sidewalks are still the old brick ones from well over a hundred years ago.) I also noticed tonight that a lot of people here have dogs.

In one house, the front room light was on, the curtains were open. I saw an old man sitting at his dining table, writing something. He had tons of books everywhere.  And two boxers were right there in the window, staring at me! They startled me, because I saw the man in the background first, before I saw the two dogs. You know how they get so tense when they stare at you. And suddenly, there they were. I just love boxers.

So many dogs, watching me along the way. Too cute.

And then I turned back onto Basin Street, heading in the direction of my house, and I suddenly realized — wow, there it is. On the corner. Lights on down in my kitchen, lights on up in my bedroom. My home, you know? I finally have a home — and peace from that mercilessly mean woman who raised me.

Somehow, I am going to write this book. For heaven’s sake, it’s only going to be about 40 pages… and it deals with her in what I consider her “best ” years. I’ve got to figure out how to deal with this.

Well, when I went back inside, I sat at the kitchen table and read a new issue of Mojo that came in the mail yesterday. And watched a couple more of those old episodes of Black Books and laughed really hard. And also saw that I can stream Rocketman and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood now– two movies that I really wanted to see. So that made me happy.

Then I went back up to my room, to my desk, trying to figure out how to approach that first prologue/segment of In the Shadow of Narcissa without losing my mind, and right then, as I sat down, a little ladybug was scurrying across a photo of Nick Cave that’s sitting on my desk.

The little beetle was just there, walking across his face. And of course, it instantly reminded me of one of his Red Hand Files letters from the summertime, when he wrote about ladybugs in connection to his dead son, Arthur, and how believing in something (in signs) helps us survive.

So, I took it as a sign, you know? I tried to take a picture of it before it walked off and went down the side of my desk:

The ladybug is there on the left, getting ready to walk off of the picture.

So that’s been my day. Illuminating, I guess. I’ll try to deal with the memoir again tomorrow, before I go off to meet with the director and focus on Tell My Bones.

And now, I’m gonna go crash on the bed, turn down the lights and stream something.

I hope Tuesday was good for you, gang, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. See ya.

Part of Basin Street, during a full moon this past September.

Everything Went Its Own Way!

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You know, yesterday, I took a look at what I had already written in Letter #6, “Captivity,” (Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse), and I actually liked it more than I thought I did. But I still think it needs to be completely re-written. Well, it’s only 2 pages. What I mean is that the voice needs to change — the rhythm of it. It’s too linear the way it is right now. I feel like this is one of those chapters that needs to be more stream-of-consciousness.

So, as I sat and thought about it, more images or thoughts or vague perceptions — I don’t know what to really call them — for Thug Luckless continued to creep in around the edges of my brain. A sort of brain-landscape getting underway there. And it couldn’t be more different from what I’m trying to capture in Letter #6 for the other book. So there was a lot of maneuvering for brain space going on there, but Thug won out, for a little while.

Thug just gets more interesting to me every day.  The strangest things inspire me:

Those (in my opinion) hideously huge monogrammed, square-toed  Balenciaga boots for men. (They look huger on the models than it looks here.)

Image result for balenciaga logo monogram boots for men 2020

The old Rudy Vallee smash, sort of haunting, hit song, “Just An Echo in the Valley” from 1933.

And of course, the tone and overall temperament of Jean Genet’s ode to death & rape in Occupied Paris in the summer of 1944, Funeral Rites.

Image result for funeral rites jean genet

And then add the post-Apocalyptic urban backdrop of P-Town where most of the men were killed in the Apocalypse and there is no longer any working indoor plumbing so all the women are pissing in the streets, and then the pornographic premise of the AI sex robot, endlessly wandering around because the woman who bought & programmed him, died, and none of the other women know how to un-program him, so he’s fucking everyone, and gradually morphing from artificial intelligence into sentient intelligence strictly through sexuality. But nobody knows this is happening to him, or ever knows, and it’s sort of a tragedy. But beautiful.

It’s just an amazing hodge-podge of stuff swirling around my brain regarding Thug –and creating yet another one of those universes that sort of isolates me from everything and everyone around me… but I still love it. It just excites me to no end.

And yet, I awoke at 5:30 this morning,  suddenly feeling like: Okay, gotta get In the Shadow of Narcissa into some kind of manuscript shape today.

WTF??!! Where did that come from? That memoir could not be more different from the other two projects. And I really thought that the other two were on the front burners for now. But apparently they aren’t, because I was lying there in the dark, completely focused on Narcissa.

So there you go. All these projects that sort of lurch forward at the same time around here. And tomorrow I need to focus on Tell My Bones because I’m meeting with the director. And I’m thinking that I’m supposed to be planning on being in NYC next month to begin the table-read process so that I can rewrite the final act of the play and fix one of the main character arcs. Time is flying. And then at some point I have to be in Toronto with Sandra for the round table with the producers and the director for The Guide to Being Fabulous.

I still have no idea when that’s supposed to get underway. I only know the show is slated for the upcoming season, beginning in November, and I have a ton of re-writes still to do on it. But I won’t have any idea what those specific re-writes will be until we do the round table. And Sandra has to be in Stratford (Canada) beginning in April to be in the musical Chicago all spring/summer. So, um, hmmm….

Here’s a handy definition to have:

flex·i·bleˈ fleksəb(ə)l

adjective: flexible
capable of bending easily without breaking.

All right, well.  We’re certainly going to find out about that.

Here, the laundry is just about done. I’m thinking that later today, I’m going to drag the boxes out of the storage closet and take them downstairs and pack up all the Christmas stuff, while streaming more episodes of Black Books. (The dining room currently looks like some sort of Christmas thrift store, everything’s piled everywhere.)

But meanwhile, I have the segments from In the Shadow of Narcissa open on my desktop and I’m going to go over those now and format them into one manuscript and get a feel for how that reads (currently 9 pages).  And then maybe even write a new piece for it (and post it to the site). I’m not sure. Overall, since I want it to be chap-book length, I don’t see it being longer than 40 or 50 pages. I guess we’ll see.

So have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world and with whatever you’re working on while you’re there! Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with yet another cool Tropical Fuck Storm song, “Aspirin.” (William over at a1000mistakes blog in Australia had it as one of his top songs for 2019.) It’s off the TFS album Braindrops, released this past August. Okay. I love you guys. See ya!

“Aspirin”

[Verse 1]
The last summer that I saw you
At the BP with no cash
You were burnt out like an aspirin
And I was melting on your dash
And this was years ago when Richmond
Was way out on the astral plane
But it was fine ’cause I could see there was a light up in the tunnel
It’s okay, you know I remember how you used to say

[Chorus 1]
When you finally go
You’re gonna find out who you’ll miss the most
Well, I guarantee you’ll find it is not me
It won’t be any of the usual suspects, but whatever, man
Soon enough you’re gonna find out who I mean
When you go, you get to finally meet the one who tortured you
The one who hurt you worse than anyone, even me
And I’m just sorry that I won’t be there to tell you that I told you so
But soon enough you’ll leave, and then you’ll see

[Verse 2]
You’re the old sneakers on the floor, the coat by the front door
The ashtray by the milk crate in the yard
And you’re the dead fern in the hall, all the blanks in my recall
The old Toyota van I sold for parts
You were the house that they tore down
It’s now a vacant block of land
The ache I try to shake when I drive by
And you’re the dog ear in the book
I didn’t even know you looked at
And then other times, you’re furthest from my mind

[Verse 3]
Then I got something in the post, and there it is, your legal ghost
And just goes to show, you know
You’re kinda hard to leave behind
I don’t wanna go out no more, just the thought makes me recoil
It’s like that feeling when unwanted guests
Come banging on your door
They’re either too smart or too dumb
Or they’re too weak or they’re too strong
You said I’d be okay without you, yeah, you’ve been here all along
You were the best time I remember, and I do ’cause life is dull
It’s like you’re half the fucking neurons in my skull

[Chorus 2]
When you finally go, you’re gonna find the only thing you needed
Did exactly as it should and got you through
You did not need nobody’s help, just the idea of being helped
Though at the time it wouldn’t have felt like that was true
And when you go you’ll get to finally meet
The one who tortured you
The one that hurt you worse than everyone, even me

[Outro]
But you’ll be fine
‘Cause you could always see a light up in the tunnel
I got a feeling it’ll happen soon for me
But you’ll be fine
‘Cause you could always see a light up in the tunnel
I got a feeling it’ll happen soon
But you’ll be fine
‘Cause you could always see a light up in the tunnel
I got a feeling it’ll happen soon to me
But you’ll be fine
‘Cause you could always see a light up in the tunnel
I got a feeling it’ll happen soon

c – 2019 Gareth Liddiard

Why Doesn’t She Just Stop Scrolling?

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I am so bored with Instagram, you have no idea.

And if I’m following you on Instagram – don’t take that personally.

It’s just that my account is now not only so overloaded with ads for cute cat-related things and clothing I would never wear if my life depended on it (and I mean that — I’ve had a long and somewhat arduous while certainly interesting life, and now I’m at that lofty age wherein I’m either going to wear exactly what I want to wear or just opt-out of life entirely). Anyway.

In addition to unwanted ads, my Instagram feed has also gotten so long now that I can never even imagine getting to the bottom of the scroll anymore. And the non-advertising stuff that makes it into my feed is just a whole bunch of stuff from people that, you know, I don’t even know who they are. But this is only in the unlikely event that these complete strangers managed to get in a post amid the truly UNENDING number of Keanu Reeves photos that glut my feed.

But I don’t want to unfollow the Keanu Reeves hashtag because it is the sole hashtag on Earth (and likely its surrounding celestial environs) that does not provoke, disturb, perplex, confound, unnerve, or confuse me in any way whatsoever. So the hashtag is staying. But, you know? Jesus. How many fucking photos of Keanu are actually out there? It is mindboggling. And even while I literally sweep past these photos, I find that I’m still able to form opinions in a nanosecond: Ooh, he looked so cute back then. Oops, a little too young there. Oh man, that was a nice one. Gosh, he looks really good these days.

And I’m literally making these assessments in anti-time — it is that fleeting — because I am trying to get past all the fucking Keanu photos. And the whole scrolling process clogs up my brain and I wonder, what the fuck am I doing this for, there’s nothing interesting here…

Although David Byrne’s web magazine Reasons to Be Cheerful  (yes, he of Talking Heads fame) had a really extraordinary post over the weekend. If you want renewed hope in everything imaginable about planet Earth, check out his stats for the decade, which include:

“Homicides fell, green space grew and your weather forecast got a lot more precise. The last 10 years were filled with positive change—really! Read our list…”

And loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that while I am slavishly devoted to Nick Cave, I refuse to follow the Nick Cave hashtag because people who use the Nick Cave hashtag are seriously intense and my brain is intense enough, thank you, I don’t want their intensities getting mixed up with my own often unmanageable intensity. And Nick Cave himself only posts maybe twice a year to Instagram. (Meaning non-promotional-related Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds type posts.) (But, still — he will do it sometimes. You just gotta wait for it…)

Related image
Me, waiting for Nick Cave to actually post something on Instagram (all year)…

I also follow Iggy Pop, of course, and he posts a lot of opinion polls. I’m never really sure what these accumulative opinions are leading to, but I have discovered that I fit the exact  profile of the Iggy Pop fan, since I am always in among the largest group of people who click “yes.” What this means, I have no clue. Why he wants to know, I have no clue.

I will tell you, though, that even while I was never a Stooges fan, I have loved Iggy Pop since 1977, when his Bowie-produced albums, The Idiot and Lust For Life, were released. I had the German imports, too, which, back then, for a 16 year-old unemployed girl in Ohio, was quite an investment. And I also bought a fake ID in order to get into the Agora to see him and Bowie live during the Lust for Life tour. However, my point is, that I went on to buy every album Iggy Pop made after that (including his very interesting newest one, Free), and I wanted to point out that Soldier, from 1980, is a really good album.

I often sing the song “Dog Food” for no real reason, even all these decades later. It was just an insanely ridiculous and somewhat angry song that I find myself still needing to sing sometimes (and it’s super short– you can listen to it below. It lasts one minute and 50 seconds and you might find that you need to sing it sometimes, too, so it’s a good song to know.)

I also loved the song “Loco Mosquito” a lot.  (You’ll need to invest 4 minutes in this one, but it’s worth it. Especially if you, too, are “sick of hanging out with old transvestites.”)

(I remember that when his album Zombie Birdhouse came out, I didn’t have a whole lot of money, as usual. And one of my best friends had the album (this was back in NYC – 1982). I asked her, point blank, if I could have hers. I convinced her that I would appreciate the album a lot more than she did and that she should just give it to me. And even though she rolled her eyes and got pissed off, she actually gave it to me… I took it gladly and had absolutely no shame.)

Anyway. Not to confuse my initial point: Soldier was a really good album.

Okay. Well. I am on two completely different yet equally compelling wavelengths around here: Working on notes for a possible stand-alone story excerpt for the new novel Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town. As well as getting those persistent incoming images for Letter #6 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse — titled “Captivity.” (Novel vs. memoir; fiction vs. nonfiction; all of it erotic.)

So it’s a little confusing, which direction I’m really going to go in, but we’ll see how the day unfolds. My meeting with the director of Tell My Bones has now been moved to Wednesday, so tomorrow will likely just be a spillover from whatever I end up working on today. Plus, it gives me an additional day to contemplate the idea of washing my hair.

In general, I can’t complain. Life’s good.  But time’s a-wasting here, so I’m gonna scoot and get at it. Thanks for visiting. I leave you with “I Need More,” possibly my favorite Iggy Pop song of all time — certainly the one I relate to most personally.  Also off of the Soldier album. All righty. Have a really great Monday, wherever it leads you, gang. I love you guys, See ya!

“I Need More”

I walk around
I flop around
I need something that will be found
More venom, more dynamite, more disaster
I need more than I ever did before

But everything is going up in price
My life is going all right up ’til now
Even so there’s something missing
More truth
More intelligence
Ha ha
More future
More laugh
More culture
Don’t forget adrenaline
More freedom

I need more than an ordinary grind
And the more I think the more I need
More cars
I’ll take more money
More champagne
I can’t forget my brain
More floors
More doors
More mustard
Pickle and relish

I need more than an ordinary grind
Everybody ought to love his job
And live his life and keep his pride
Imperturbably happy with the one you love
With an exciting future
On the fat of the land

I need more than an ordinary grind
And the more I think the more I need
My life is going all right up ’til now
Even so it’s not enough for me and

I need more
I need more
I need more
Oo oo oo oo
Oo oo oo oo
Than I ever did before

I need to lead a disciplined existence
And play scratchy records
And enjoy my decline
With more divorce, more distance,
More future, more culture

More

c – 1980 Iggy Pop, Glen Matlock

Well, All Righty, Then!!

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Okay, I have to say that for whatever inexplicable reason, some of the Alexander McQueen women’s wear Spring/Summer 2020 Pre– Collection (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean) made it into my field of vision  and I actually loved it. (Except for the shoes and the tapered waist — I hate a tapered waist.)

Still. How fucking weird is that? The designer with whom I have the least patience… It was in the vein of a man’s suit, which is what I was just talking about the other day.

I guess it just goes to show you that, not only do Chesterfield cigarettes come back around — meaning that what you’ve lost can return to you. But also, something you are used to disparaging can suddenly surprise you.

Indeed, life is interesting when you remember to release things, to let things go. It makes room for other things to come into your awareness, right?

Okay, yesterday, the work with Peitor was so fun.  We got some good work done on the script — still in the process of going shot by shot through Scene 3, sort of a key and quite dynamic 90-second scene in our 8 minute film! A lot hinges on it being believable, even while its premise remains absurd.

At one point, I said: “Oh, I found all those notes we were looking for a few months ago! It turns out, I saved  them to a really weird file. I have no idea why I put them there. But I was searching for something else at the time, so I just left them there and now I can’t remember where I saw them!” Meaning that the notes we need on a second project are still irretrievable. “Why the heck did I do that?”

And he replied, “Just common idiocy.” And I laughed so hard, that then we were off and running with ideas for another project, of course titled, Common Idiocy. And we ended up laughing so hard over it, that we were both crying again. And then that underscored the rest of our work for that session. It was just so fun. I really needed to laugh like that.

I just love “Lita’s Got To Go.” (The current micro-short project.) It is so darn serious and even a bit disturbing. The shots and mood in the first couple scenes are heavily informed by Polanski’s Repulsion, which of course is not funny at all. And each shot is so precise and  full of uneasiness (Bauhaus), and yet the whole thing is basically arbitrary and leads nowhere. It’s just so funny.

Well, to us, anyway.

It does seem like it was a good thing for him to go off to London (and Paris) for the holidays, because Peitor just seemed a million times lighter yesterday. I didn’t bring up the new TV series because, frankly, I’m so fucking busy right now. I’ll just wait until it comes up again and then make room for it in my brain at that point.

Today, I want to work on crafting a sort of “stand alone” section for Thug Luckless. Something that would be part of the novel overall, but that would be suitable for publishing  as an excerpt on its own. I don’t ever write that way — I either write a short story or a novel. I don’t try to craft both at the same time. But this morning it occurred to me that I’d like to try doing that with Thug. It could open up how I’m looking at him, because I just have so many ideas circling who I think he is and what goes on in his world (even though all he actually is is an AI sex robot). So bringing part of it into tight focus could prove really informative for me.

“Captivity,” Letter #6 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse, is still gestating. I wrote 2 pages and then had to pull back from it. The energy was going nowhere. I don’t want it to be too much of a narrative. So I need it to kind of re-assemble itself in my brain.

Life is so strange, isn’t it? It’s just moment upon moment upon moment, and it always feels like it’s got a forward momentum of some kind, yet it doesn’t actually go anywhere. Everything sort of seems the same every time you wake up. And then eventually, everything’s just different.  I was thinking about that when I came out of meditation this morning.

I want so many things to change in 2020. I guess “come to fruition” is more like it, but I do want this sense that my life is lived in captivity to just leave me. By captivity, I think I mean fear and habit and that drifting thing my mind always does.

I can be in the middle of working on something, then I’ll get up from my desk, an unlit cigarette stuck in my mouth, I’ll sit down on the side of my bed and stare out the window and just drift for a while, you know? Wonder why I’m alive. What life actually is. What does it mean to be physical rather than nonphysical. I’m really just a focusing mechanism; a tuning mechanism; a mass of electro-magnetic-chemicals — this idea that I’m more important than that is sort of an illusion. My body is astounding but what I believe its purpose is, is just an illusion…

This kind of stuff takes up a lot of my brain space. And then when  I stop doing that, I’m writing highly erotic weird stuff that people seem to enjoy reading. You know, words get onto the page. I read it over and then  wonder: How’d that get there? Meaning, where does it come from? I’m tuning into something; focusing on something. God only knows what. But it does sort of define who I am — the words I choose to put onto a page. Whatever that means, right?

And the days fly by… and then suddenly, everything’s different.

And on that note, gang! I’m gonna take a look at Thug Luckless. See what sort of artificial life I can bestow upon him. I hope you’re having a nice Saturday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.

Off We Go, Back To Work!

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It isn’t actually snowing here today — as the little picture above would imply. It’s raining. And is going to rain nonstop until tomorrow, when it will turn to snow. So it’s kind of an appropriate picture.

I cannot tarry here today because Peitor got back to Los Angeles on Monday and is expecting to get back to work this morning on our micro-script — often titled “Lita’s Got To Go” but sometimes it’s called other things! (I prefer it’s Swedish subtitle: Lita måste gå.)

Anyway. I have to get back in the mindspace for that intensely well-crafted absurdity, so I can’t spend too long on the blog today.

Oh, before I forget, there’s a new Nick Cave Red Hand Files letter out today. It’s very, very interesting, about the song “Hollywood” from the album Ghosteen. I love that song.  (I know, I know, I know — someday I’ll try to dig up a Nick Cave song that I hate, just to prove to you how fair and impartial I can be!! Meanwhile, as pigs fly…)

Anyway. You can read it at the Red Hand Files link up there if you so choose!!

I spent yesterday streaming more of those old Black Books TV episodes on Amazon. That show just really makes me laugh. I know it’s politically incorrect to laugh at drunks anymore but I just find it so stupidly funny. I really just do. I laugh out loud.

And I also did this:

Yes, I did indeed start yet a third journal and clipped a pen to it and carried it around. Meaning, down to the kitchen, back up to my desk, over to the night table.

It does sort of seem, on the face of it, to be kind of ridiculous to have all these separate journals for all the many things that go on in mind that need constant processing. Why not put it all in just one book and not isolate everything like this?

Frankly, I’m not sure. But for now, this is how it is. And I’m hoping it will just stop here, you know? (Oh, and I do want to mention that I am well aware that my little bedside lamp there is intensely un-chic and is well over 60 years old… I, personally, have only owned it since 2004, when Mikey Rivera found it at a garage sale somewhere in Bucks County, Pennsylvania and brought it home to me. I fell instantly in love with it. That’s some kid’s childhood embodied there in that lamp! How can I part with it?? Plus that little green glass part of it is its own separate night light!! It’s just too cool, even though I’m not exactly into the sailboat motif anywhere else in the house, or in my life…) (As if I have a motif in my house other than “old.”)

(And that coaster there on my night table is of a pub in London. I bought the set of coasters at the Heathrow airport about 20 years ago, and it has different illustrations of famous old pubs in London. I also have a set of coasters illustrating popular tourist spots in Paris — the Moulin Rouge one sits on my desk. For some reason, I love coasters bought in airports. And a friend of mine who lives here in the US but who is British,  took a vacation several years ago in Switzerland and, without knowing my slavish devotion to coasters bought in foreign airports, brought me back a set of coasters of pastoral spots in Switzerland. She said, as she sheepishly gave them to me, “I’m not sure why I bought you these weird things, I just saw them and suddenly felt compelled to get them for you…” I was thrilled!!)

So I still have all the Christmas stuff hanging out in the dining room. I just haven’t felt like dragging all those boxes out of storage yet. It felt really nice to just kind of lounge around and read magazines and talk on the phone and stream old TV shows that I’d never seen before… Kind of a little paradise around here for a couple of days.

But I am indeed back to work today because Peitor insisted on it. (I know: first, he insists on dashing off to London for 2 weeks; now he insists on dashing back to work. And my job, I guess, is to just be flexible and let people be whoever they need to be in this life…)

And even though I’ve already seen him a couple times during the holidays, I have an official meeting with the director of Tell My Bones on Tuesday. I actually can’t wait. It’s going to be a good meeting, I know. Even though I still have to do some revisions on the play. (He’s actually asked me to wait until the first table read in NYC because he thinks it will be more instructive for me that way, so I haven’t felt too pressured to do any more rewrites on it just yet.)

Plus, I just love having meetings with people who have vision, who have great ideas. And he does. Plus I love knowing that I am only responsible for writing the play. I don’t have to execute any of his ideas — just write the play. He is always saying to me: “Marilyn, that’s not your job; that’s my job. Just write and let me do my job, okay?”

Okay!

It’s so cool to have a project and not have to be overseeing absolutely everything. I guess this is part of my 2020 horoscope, where it said that this year I was going to learn how to be interdependent.

So, on that note, I need to scoot because I have to get myself sorted here at the desk before Peitor calls. And, of course, get more coffee. (BTW, I drink really, really weak old-fashioned coffee, because I can’t handle very much caffeine at all. I just love the process of constantly drinking coffee but I do like at least a little caffeine. So when I’m saying that I’m always drinking all this coffee, I’m not actually wired to the rafters or anything. I can barely feel it. )

But that said, I’m gonna get more coffee and get going around here. Thanks for visiting, gang! I haven’t actually been playing much music around here, except Sting and old Nick Cave songs that I’ve already posted here recently. Although, I do really love this other song, that I played yesterday while making my lunch, so I’ll leave you with that. You probably already know it because it’s a monster hit that’s already a year old, so I won’t post the lyrics, which are exceptionally lengthy. It’s a really cool song, though — “a lot” by 21 Savage featuring J. Cole.

All righty! Have a terrific first Friday of 2020!!I love you guys. See ya.

Little Brown Mouse, Thinking & Reading!!

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Yesterday was sort of a perfect day, gang. Surely it is indicative of a perfect year ahead. Maybe even a perfect decade??

I did no work yesterday at all, and I actually read that issue of Another Man from cover to cover and inadvertently got some interesting insights into the Thug Luckless character, of all things.

Not necessarily related to Thug Luckless, though, it does seem that haute couture menswear is going in two distinct directions — which is cool in and of itself, because usually menswear goes in no direction. But it’s either a sort of “anime in the post-apocalypse” plus oversized boots and shoes (and oversized overcoats), or really, really elegant stuff — Givenchy, specifically.

Plus the random, single pearl earring, over and over. I loved that.

I’m not an anime fan, at all. It really just doesn’t do anything for me (although I do love hentai, but if you add pornography to anything I tend to like it lots better!). So I don’t really relate to most of the menswear lines that are aiming at very young men. And those enormous shoes and boots — I’m not getting that. But, overall, there was just some really elegant stuff and I wished that designers would design that kind of stuff for women. But they just don’t. (I guess because men prefer that non-lesbian women not dress like men unless they’re Katharine Hepburn or something.)

And oddly, Alexander McQueen had a really elegant outfit in there, which of course makes me wonder why his womens-wear line is always reminiscent of women in cages. But the men get to look elegant. (It’s not actually him, though, because he’s been dead a long time. And Givenchy is dead now, too.)

Anyway, it was thought-provoking.  From the sublime to the ridiculous (i.e., kids wearing sort of full-length “A Clockwork Orange” depictions on their coats and such. That seemed more than a little regrettable to me. You know, if a grown man wants to wear something that is blatantly symbolic of violence and control, that’s one thing; but to put it on a child trivializes it down to absolutely nothing. And that, to me, is such a waste of the human mind and the power of ideas.)

And I also thought it was extremely interesting how Lanvin had a menswear layout that featured a woman, between two fully dressed men,  wearing only a sort of cape — or oversized scarf — at her neck and a pair of socks. Since Jeanne Lanvin, the actual woman, was one of the first truly visionary designers — over a hundred and twenty years ago — who truly liberated women within (under) their clothing.  What would she think of a woman wearing only a scarf and a pair of socks now, in her”name”? I don’t actually have any idea, but it was worth pondering.

(And Paul Poiret, who followed in that liberating vein in the early 20th Century — absolutely fascinates me. He created designs that necessitated women get rid of restrictive undergarments entirely; to let their bodies be totally free under their dresses, and also to do away with yards & yards of fabric, so women no longer had to drag the weight of that around, and also to have shoes that liberated their ankles.)

Image result for original paul poiret designs
Paul Poiret — a later design, post WWI

And the thing that interested me most, in the whole magazine, which is close to 280 pages, was something knitwear designer Gareth Wrighton said, in connection to narratives told through digital avatars — about wanting to create costume designs that aren’t restricted by physics. That made me stop and really think.

Well, after that, I spoke on the phone for quite a while with Val in Brooklyn. We hadn’t spoken in many weeks. I tried to get her input on what I should do about the current family drama situation in my life, and she just said, “Sheesh, Emmy, that’s a tough one.” So no real help there… but it was great talking to her while I was just lounging around on my bed, doing nothing!!

And then I went down to the kitchen and started streaming an old British TV show — Black Books. It’s 20 years old already, but it was brand new to me and it was so funny. It’s basically just gags, no riveting storyline or anything. It takes place in a small London book shop. But it made me laugh out loud repeatedly, so that was nice. I’m planning on watching more of that today.

I’m liking this not-really-working kind of thing. Even though I can feel Thug Luckless gestating and that’s exciting to me. (Wouldn’t that be cool if we could get ultrasounds of our novels gestating inside us? “Oh look! He’s got a little Chapter 4 growing in there!!” And then I could show the printout to everyone: “Look! I’ve got a new novel taking shape inside me!!”)

Which sort of reminds me… I’m not exactly sure how it’s happening — whether it’s related to the director of my play, or something else entirely — but my days of living in deep cover out here in the Hinterlands seem to be coming to a gradual end. I’m okay with it; I’m not going to fight against it, or anything. And I guess it was going to eventually happen. Meaning total strangers suddenly knowing that I’m a writer.

Well, okay. I’ve actually decided that I do want to start keeping a  regular journal again. I’ll just figure out how to make room for it in all this other writing I’m constantly doing. And with that in mind, I’m gonna scoot and get back at it. And then maybe take it easy again for the rest of the day!!

Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope 2020 is starting off nicely for you, wherever you are in the world! I love you guys. See ya.

A Toast to One More Christmas Miracle!

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Honestly, gang. Yesterday was one of those days that, for the most part, did not go very well.

The leg issues continued to make it really difficult for me to do anything that required that I get out of bed. It was discouraging and frustrating and then the director of Tell My Bones, who is still here from NYC for the holidays, texted me midday to say that he and his husband and a small group of influentials from town (meaning the whole LGBTQ infrastructure — arts, symphony, theater, politics) were getting together for brunch at the Granville Inn. Would they see me there?

No way. My god. Not only could I barely walk but I had officially gone into the realm of having “sea hag” hair — I mean, my hair really looked that bad. So there was just no way that any kind of networking whatsoever was going to happen with me yesterday, and that was depressing.

You know, I really like to make a memorable impression on people, but not because I have the most hideous hair imaginable.

Plus, I’m not 100% sure yet how I feel about networking in the town. I don’t live in the town, but the town is only 20 miles from here. And I moved here to be isolated and anonymous and tucked away in the middle of nowhere so that I could have a ton of privacy and just write. Have peace and quiet. Because I actually am an amazing networker, but once I get going, my life gets stupefyingly busy. And these days, seriously, I just want to write.

Still, it was depressing — the whole situation with my legs. And I have some family garbage going on now, too (adoptive family), which wasn’t helping my mood at all.

But then, at around 9 pm, for no discernible reason whatsoever — because I hadn’t even been able to do yoga since Friday — my legs suddenly were completely fine. Back to normal. No pain. No hobbling around. No problems doing the stairs. Nothing. I was just back to normal. And I’m still fine here this morning.

Clearly, a post-Christmas miracle, gang!

However, now I think there’s something the matter with the sun. It is almost 7:30am here and the sun hasn’t come up. It’s not even close to coming up — except for the streetlights, the world is dark outside my windows. So maybe at 9pm last evening I died and went to some sort of Purgatory and I just haven’t figured it out yet…

Either way, dead or alive, I’m planning to have a really good day. Wash my hair. Manicure. Pedicure. Probably even shave my legs, although I wouldn’t want to get too exuberant. The dead of winter is still ahead of us (more snow coming later this week) so who the heck is going to actually see me in all my loveliness, unencumbered by an arctic coat, scarf, mittens, ear muffs — well, I just don’t know. But still it makes me happy to know that underneath all the deep-freeze stuff, I will look super presentable.

All righty.

I’m thinking that either New Year’s Day or the day after, I will spend the day taking down the tree and putting everything away. And I’m going to try to figure out a way to pack everything so that I don’t end up feeling overwhelmed again when unpacking it next Christmas. I want Christmas to be happy again.

I feel like I’ve been doing a really good job of letting go of the past — the old house, in particular. And since 98% of the Christmas stuff I have now comes from the old house, there are potential minefields all over the place for me. You know, there was so much about the old house that I loved — especially Buster, Bunny, and Fluffy, who all came with me from the East Coast. And my piano. And all of my roses — I had so many roses at the old house, including old garden roses, which I just adored. I had so many flowers there, in general. And an old maple tree, and several mulberry trees, plus an arbor and an old swing — all of it is gone now. And that whole period of my life wound up being an absolute nightmare. Just unbearable. So I just don’t have the luxury of “looking back” in any way. Just keep moving forward. Do whatever I can to disconnect myself from that whole era.

And I think I’ve been doing a really good job. I had a happy Christmas. A quiet one, but a happy one. I know it’s not going to stay quiet like this forever. In 2020, I’ll have to leave home a lot more, go out into the world again, meet more amazing people. But for now, I’m here in my sanctuary, loving every moment of it. Feeling just so blessed that I lived long enough to find this place.

The sun seems to be coming up. Apparently it is quite an overcast day out there. But we’ll see how it goes. I am once again out of milk! So, clearly, I have been drinking too much coffee around here this month. (You know, there was a time when I drank one cup of coffee a day and the rest of the time, I drank tea. And really good tea, too. The kind you had to order specially, in those beautiful tins. And I still have a number of teapots, but I don’t know — somewhere along the line, my life became all about coffee, and subsequently, all about the milk…)

Wow, well, the sun seems to be trying to come out. Here is what it looks like outside one of my bedroom windows right now. (In winter, you can more easily see just how close I live to the church, which is why, during the summer months, when all the windows are open, I can hear the church bells when they chime — a thing I have always loved. The church is just behind that white house with the black shutters.)

Okay, I’m gonna scoot! Have a terrific day, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys. See ya!