Yes! — had he lived — Jack Kerouac would have been 103 years old today!!
Jack, listening to a radio somewhere
Which were your favorite books by Jack Kerouac? Mine were: The Subterraneans; The Dharma Bums; and Big Sur.
And my favorite Beats were Jack, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and Allen Ginsberg. Although there were some other poets on the fringe of the Beatniks that I also liked, they weren’t solidly part of the Beat Generation — they became more prominent a little later.
Okay, aside from those heavenly birthday wishes, I don’t really have time to post today. I gotta scoot. The next 4 days, I have morning shifts.
The weather this entire week is going to be just incredible, gang, so I can’t decide if I should take my favorite 94-year-old Japanese client to the Peony Bistro for lunch today, or wait until Friday.
If I left the decision to him, he would want to go out for lunch every day. And so would I — when the weather is so nice! But I don’t want his family to think I’m taking advantage of him when they see his credit card bill. (He never, ever, EVER lets me pay for my own lunch. So I limit our outings to once a week.)
So I guess I will just play it by ear.
Meanwhile, enjoy your wonder-filled Wednesday, wherever you are in the world, gang!!!
I have no clue where this sudden skill has come from. But I am still so new to it, that, at first, I loaded the bullets in backwards and needed an instructor to come over and help me figure out why the gun wouldn’t fire…
I feel for certain, though, that I channel my birth dad on that shooting range. (If you are new to the blog, I had a very intense and brief relationship with my birth dad. He was 15 years older than me. I met him in 1988 and he died in 1999. He was career-Navy — and a Navy SEAL in Vietnam throughout that war. He eventually retired to the desert in Nevada. We had a ton of “unfinished business” when he died because he did not tell me he was dying, he simply stopped speaking to me. And then he was gone.)
He sort of comes into my brain when I am aiming at the target — in a good way. I can feel him helping me shoot. It was like that a couple weeks ago, too, when I went to the shooting range for the first time.
And then, today — I went into the shooting range with Johnny Cash singing in my head because I had been playing “Folsom Prison Blues” in the car on my way over.
But once I was on the range, bullets loaded correctly, aiming at the target and thinking of my birth dad, suddenly the Everly Brothers started singing in my head: “Darling you can count on me/ ’til the sun dries up the sea…” and then I had bullseye after bullseye. With my birth dad — and that song — singing in my head.
And I have not listened to that song in ages.
It was very intense.
Anyway. I feel a little stunned but my day off has been just splendid.
It is going to be such an incredibly beautiful day. And Peitor is unavailable today because he has meetings in LA. And I have my final day off of THREE days off in a row! And I don’t feel like spending it cleaning the house…
So I’m driving out to the shooting range to find out if I remember anything that I learned two weeks ago.
I’ll probably also wash my car today. Maybe take a walk later. But, for the most part, I’m going to try to just take it easy.
(Driving to the shooting range music??)
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Well, one of my cats seems to be bleeding. I’m not sure which one — I just saw the blood stains. I’m guessing there was a cat fight during the wee small hours of the night that I was blissfully unaware of.
Ever since Big Blackie was killed by that car, Little Blackie has wanted to be inside my house.
She is not my cat, but here she now is, inside — I’m guessing, eternally. And she seems to have upset a couple of the foster cats.
Kon Tiki is still officially the only cat who won’t come inside (and stay inside, I mean). I always open the door to let her in, but nowadays, she takes one look at the 722 cats in the kitchen, then she looks at me and says, “Are you out of your fucking mind? I’m outta here!” And then she heads right back outside. And then she sits and stares contentedly at the sky.
Well, some happy news!!
I officially booked the hotel room for Kara and me, for when we go see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds on May 2nd. And — NO! — I didn’t book another no frills hotel. I booked a stupidly expensive one, but only because it is right next to the theater and has valet parking, so once we get to town, we won’t have to do anything but simply BE there. Yay!
Here it is — the Hotel LeVeque! And way down at the ground floor, to the right, you can see the tiny red vertical marquis for the Palace Theater — that’s how close it is:
And here’s the brasserie where we will likely have dinner before the show (knowing Kara, she will probably say, “Let me pick up the tab for this,” and this time, I might actually just say “okey-doke!” because I’ve seen the menu already — and the prices!!! Well. We’ll see, gang!!):
And I texted the guy down the road who looks after my cats when I’m away and he is all set to stop by here on May 2nd.
So I guess it’s really going to happen!
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ North American Tour officially begins April 15th in Boston. (Buy tickets here.)
And in similar news —
If you live in Europe, on April 7th at 8PM CET, you can watch the premiere broadcast of their Wild God concert in France, from last November. At Arte.tv and on YouTube. But it won’t be available in the US until after their North American tour is over. (Probably something to do with not wanting to cannibalize ticket sales or something weird like that…)
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Before I forget —
Here’s part 2 of James Tabor’s lecture on the Didache.
Part 2: The Didache: A Lost and Rediscovered Text of the Teaching of Jesus (43 mins):
Okay. That’s kind of it.
I want to get this beautiful day off underway!
Have a terrific Tuesday — guns or no guns — wherever you are in the world.
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys.
See ya!
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Breakfast-listening music!!!! Yay!!!!!
Such a great song!! And a great song to start a beautiful day off. I sang along loudly for the cats and they seemed to really appreciate it. Why not try it at your house and see how it goes?
Sam Cooke’s legendary “Twistin’ the Night Away”. 1961. Enjoy, gang!!!!
More like the mantra of every single cat in the house. ( “I do what I want”.)
But let me tell you, gang, that carpet shampooer is GREAT! This is the one I got (luckily, it does not come with a dog):
But it is specifically for cleaning carpets that are exposed to pets. This thing is incredible. So lightweight, so easy to use, and the carpet dries quickly — it doesn’t saturate the carpet. And it gets up so much dirt.
It really made me so happy. So far, I’ve only had enough time to do one room in the house — 4 more to go. But wow. (Here’s a link on Amazon if you are interested.) My home is finally going to be clean again!!
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Other than that, yesterday was not fun. Losing that hour each March always makes me crazy. But today I’m already feeling adjusted to it, so here’s hoping the day will be more productive. (The weather is splendid, so that also helps!)
The situation with Peitor’s family ended up working out great. I can’t post the details, but it was a really good thing he went to Iowa when he did. But he had his hands full for 2 weeks.
Now he is in Los Angeles, which I’m sure will not be fun — mainly because of everything that everyone in LA has been through. And then he’s back to France in time for Series Mania in Lille. So we shall see!
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Phil is supposed to be live tonight at 8PM Eastern time. Check here later to confirm.
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Meanwhile, life goes on.
I’m celebrating a very beautiful anniversary — 43 years ago, I had my first professional solo gig as a singer/songwriter in NYC. It was at Speakeasy, on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. And it was spectacular. My songs were so well received, it was crazy. And I was so nervous. (The club was way far down at the right.)
When I first got to NYC, I thought I would just audition for bands or producers that needed a singer. But that didn’t go well because I didn’t have a very powerful voice.
Finally, one producer I auditioned for was kind enough to have a conversation with me after my audition, which led to me playing him a couple of my own songs on his guitar. And he said, “This is what you need to do! Forget about singing other people’s songs. Your voice isn’t suited to that, and your songs are really good.”
Well, that terrified me — the thought of just standing on a stage with my guitar and singing, all alone. It took me a while to get up my nerve to finally do it, but in late February of 1982, I went to an open mic night at the extremely famous folk club in Greenwich Village — Folk City. And I was so fucking nervous.
And I’m not making this up — I was allowed to sing 2 of my own songs and when I started singing “When Wyoming Calls Me Baby”, everyone in the room was chatting to each other, drinking, oblivious to me. The place was packed. But then suddenly, after singing about one verse, everyone stopped talking. The entire club was completely silent and everyone’s eyes were on me.
I was just terrified. But I kept going. And the same thing happened when I sang my next song, “Breaking Glass.” Everyone was silent until the end of my song. And then the applause was deafening. It was beyond anything I had ever dreamed would happen to me.
And the guy who booked the shows at Speakeasy, which was another folk club down the street, came right up to me the minute I got off the stage and he shouted, “You’re really good!” and on the spot, he booked me for my first solo gig ever, and from then on, I had gigs in Greenwich Village (and elsewhere) every week, for several years after that.
After the open mic night, I remember coming up from the subway near the Camelot building (that I posted about the other day — where I lived with my first husband, off Times Square), stopping at a payphone on the corner, holding my guitar case, and making a collect call to my best friend back home in Ohio.
Since it was February, it was a cold night but really clear, and since it was NYC, there were of course bright lights lighting the night and cars and taxis were zipping by. People everywhere. And I was on cloud 9. I remember my voice was shaking when I told her “I got a gig!!”
And about 10 days later was that gig and my world changed forever.
Even though I absolutely hated the music business, today I am content to just remember how happy those early days made me feel.
Below are the 2 songs I sang. “When Wyoming Calls Me Baby” is a demo with a full band. And “Breaking Glass” is from a vinyl record that Speakeasy produced in the summer of 1982. The recording is now in the Smithsonian.
It was so great to be part of something beautiful for a while.
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Okay. Enjoy your Monday, wherever you are in the world.
Then I will begin the unbelievably daunting task of spring-cleaning this filthy house!! But I am going to be SO HAPPY once it’s all done.
It’s going to start feeling like my home again. And I really, really need that feeling, gang. I’ll probably even hang up the Easter wreaths on the front door and the kitchen door.
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Regarding the suicide in my family that I mentioned yesterday — I won’t go into the details, but I did find out this morning what had happened and it is unbelievably heartbreaking.
But thankfully, the sun is shining like crazy today and the weather is starting to warm up, and that helps my psyche immensely.
I’ll be able to start taking my regular walks again starting today, and that helps a lot, too.
So, onward.
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And here’s this!!
I know, I’ve posted this before, but just in case you thought there was a shortage of men I love who wear my name on their chests!!!!
(Yes, I know, it’s referencing Marilyn MONROE — but in case you didn’t know, I was in fact named after her by my adoptive dad, so it sort of counts….)
Keith wears Marilyn
(A delightful 1 minute and 45 seconds.)
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And on that note, I guess I better get started. I’ve already lost one hour to Daylight Saving’s Time.
Enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world!!!
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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Breakfast-listening music!!
Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits! “Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha,” 1959. Enjoy, gang!!
Another one of those mornings where I awoke from having some amazingly cool dreams. I was in a really great space. Serene. Hopeful. Very interested in life and in living it.
And at 5AM — a text on my phone that a really kind and caring person in my extended family had committed suicide.
And from there, you know, you have to get out of bed and start your day. Knowing that the family of a 94-year-old Japanese man, who lives alone in the early stages of dementia, is counting on you to go take care of him and not burden him with any of your own grief.
Life, these days, gang.
But after today, I have 3 days off. Some of which will be spent on editing the final documents for the TV series pitch bible. And the other days will be devoted to finally cleaning my house!! And maybe a quick trip to the shooting range.
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Here’s this.
Another photo from the Isle of Wight concert in 1969:
Keith Richards
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And oddly enough, here’s this! I found these photos online yesterday, when my 94-year-old Japanese client and I were talking about places where we used to live. He likes me to try to find photos of everything on my phone.
This is most of the floor plan of the apartment that I lived in when I was married to Chong Foun Kee, my first husband. The apartment was/is in the Camelot Building in NYC, on the corner of W.45th Street and 8th Avenue. (What’s missing in the photo — the bedroom and bathroom are to the far right. That doorway on the left goes into the kitchen.)
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Okay. I gotta scoot.
Enjoy your Saturday, wherever you are in the world.
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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From last night!!
Just beautiful. I looped it and listened to it by candlelight about 10 times.
I loved this song when I was a young girl. By then, it was already an “oldie” by the Everly Brothers. One thing is for certain, I always seem to have the same tastes in music as Keith has had. My whole life long.
Keith Richards solo with piano, an outtake from 1981. “All I Have To Do Is Dream”. Enjoy.
This will be another brief one because I gotta scoot!! But, wow! What a gorgeous day here, gang!
Yesterday was so gloomy and snowy and windy and cold, and as I was driving to and from town, I just felt like I couldn’t deal with it a moment longer… I needed SUN!
And this morning, the entire weather report for the next 6 days had changed!!
It is so sunny here right now that it feels like Spring.
And tomorrow night is the final night of lighting the votives at “bedtime” because Sunday , we move the clocks ahead and it will still be daylight for me at “bedtime.”
I put that in quotes, because when I go to bed, I do a bunch of things: I watch a little TV on my phone, I study at least one lesson of the many courses I’m studying right now, and I listen to a chapter in whatever audio book I’m listening to (currently: Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald.) And then I go to sleep.
One of the online courses I’m studying right now is really fascinating. (All the courses I’m always taking are Judeo-Christian in some way.) This particular course is “Judaism” and taught by Isaiah M. Gafni, Ph.D. A professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
This is my second course taught by him and I always learn some very interesting stuff. (If you’re new to the blog: when I was a few weeks old, I was adopted by a very religious Polish-Latvian Jewish family in Cleveland. So for most of the first 18 years of my life, I was surrounded by very religious Jews. I started learning Hebrew at age 5, and went to Hebrew school 3 times a week, until I was 9 and begged my parents: “Can I please go to dancing school???” For some blessed reason, they said yes.)
Anyway. The current lesson discusses the transition from the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (by the Romans, in 77 CE), and how Judaism went from being strictly in the Temple and run by priests who were born into the priesthood, to being run by rabbis who were schooled to become rabbis and who were very mobile and could travel to other communities.
This is something I have always wondered about and this particular lesson was fascinating.
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Okay, anyway. Before I forget!
Il donaldo trumpo posted the popcorn meme again!! So get ready for some sort of political bruhaha to get underway this weekend. (And remember that you’re watching a movie.)
Unfortunately, this t-shirt (my favorite one!!) is sold out:
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More Nick Cave stuff —
For some reason, Nick Cave Official on Instagram is telling us to watch this specific lyric video, the song for Anita Lane (which I’ve posted here before, but here it is again!). This is my favorite song on the Wild God album:
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And THANK YOU to everybody for downloading my eBooks yet again at Smashwords this past week. The sale ends tomorrow. (Visit HERE for links to my eBooks that are free to download. Scroll down the page.) (ADULTS ONLY!!)
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And here’s this!!!!!
Keith Richards at the Isle of Wight concert in 1969!!!
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And that’s it!! I seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY gotta scoot!!
Enjoy your lovely Friday, wherever you are in the world!!
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!!
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Breakfast-listening music!!!
Ernest Tubb, the Texas Troubadour
From Ernest Tubb, his incredible classic, “Walking the Floor Over You.” 1941. Enjoy, gang!!
After the last two days and such beautiful weather, we are back to high winds, a touch of snow, and below freezing temperatures.
That seems to affect my moods these days, more than it ever did. I was speaking to someone yesterday who felt the same way. I never minded winter before — but now I just want it over with. And these relentless high winds keep me on the verge of my PTSD.
Anyway!! The agency completely re-did my schedule for March yesterday. So now I am working only morning shifts for the entire month. I prefer morning to evening shifts, but it’s harder to post to the blog.
Regarding anything in the news, I am not posting about it anymore, but still following it. I hope you are keeping up with NewsTreasonChannel17 to get a good idea of what is really going on out there right now. And also, of course, following Phil, whenever he’s around.
Oh, since it was such a pretty day yesterday, I took my 94-year-old Japanese client out for lunch, and guess where??
Tequilaville!!!
And he concurred — the food there is really good. (But I only let him have one beer. No tequila. With his wooden leg, it’s hard enough to keep him steady.)
Okay. I gotta scoot.
Have a great Thursday wherever you are in the world.
This will be brief because I have a morning client (I have morning shifts all week). But the good news is that it’s with my favorite 94-year-old Japanese man!
During my meditation this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that, client or no client, he is one of my most favorite people on Earth. And isn’t it interesting that I have such a spiritual rapport with him — a man in the early stages of dementia — and that we laugh so much and have so much in common and that we literally talk for 4 straight hours whenever we are together (3 days a week)?
If you were to overhear our conversations, you would not think that I was talking to someone with a memory problem. We just have the best times together — both in terms of just having fun but also sharing deeply spiritual conversations.
And if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you may recall that in the autumn, I had this other wonderful client — a woman with several Degrees in Theology from Yale, where she studied just after WWII.
She has no memory issues whatsoever. And she and I had the best conversations, too. About Christian theology, about the Bible, about human nature, about her extraordinary life.
Anyway, she spends winters in Florida and will be coming back here soon. I am so hoping they re-assign me to her. When I visit with people like that — even though I do have to do some serious “caregiver” tasks — it is not like “work” at all. It is incredible.
So, here’s hoping. But we’ll see.
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Okay.
Things with Peitor’s family are improving immensely!!! And it was a really, really good thing that he showed up in Iowa when he did. The situation there has still sort of put him “on hold” as far as the TV pilot proposal package goes. But we are hanging in there.
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In other news!!
Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File yesterday morning that was really wonderful!! In essence, he told us what he eats for lunch everyday (and it’s quite similar to what I eat for breakfast everyday). But he also said some beautiful things about humanity. In part:
“And it reminds me that we all stand before the world with our faculties – our minds, bodies, mouths, and hands – each of us shaping the environment around us. What we think, do, and say is fundamental to the survival of this grand human project. Each of us is precious, and our actions are vital, everything we do and say matters. We can speak beauty into the world or poison it with our words; we can build things up or tear them down; we can dream of a world that is vast, alive, and interesting, or reason it to be small, hard, and empty.”
Have a wonder-filled Wednesday, wherever you are in the world!
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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On a Sinatra kick around here.
When I was 7 years old, I had a transistor radio that I just loved. And that particular year, the song below was a huge Top 40 hit and I just loved listening to it on my transistor!!
As fate would have it, my Japanese client designed one of the most popular pocket-sized transistor radios in the world, back in the late 1960s, while living/working in Hong Kong.
When I played this song for him, and told him how much I loved listening to it on my transistor when I was 7 (and he was 37), he laughed with delight and said, “Yes, I remember this song!!”
Marilyn's Room 